Guest of ilb 2004, 2008
Amanda Michalopoulou was born in Athens, Greece, in 1966. She studied French Literature in Athens and journalism in Paris. In 1993 she won first prize for the best short story in a literature competition run by »Revmata« magazine. Shortly afterwards she published her first book, »Éxo i zoi ine políchromi« (1994; t: Outside, life is colourful), a collection that consists of five short stories. With a sharp eye for detail, she portrays situations taken from daily life, whose outcomes are often surrealistically incisive. The fantastic and disconcerting element in her work turns up also in her subsequent books, which were mainly written during her periods of literary residency on scholarships in Germany, France, the U.S. and Switzerland.
She refers to her three novels, »Jándes« (1996; t: Octopus garden), »Osses forés antéxis« (1998; t: That’s life!) and »Paliókeros« (2001; t: Bloody awful weather), as a »self-reference trilogy«. Her main characters are often writers, translators or publishers who are associated with the world of words and literature. Over the course of the stories, they embark on journeys, both geographical and spiritual, in search of real life, their histories and identities. Her first novel, »Jándes«, which was awarded the prestigious Critics’ Prize by the literary magazine »Diavazo«, tells the story of a family. In »Osses forés antéxis«, the Greek narrator passes through several European cities in search of her Czech beloved, who looks like Franz Kafka and tenderly calls her his »little beetle«. Amanda Michalopoulou incorporates eighty quotations from Kafka and numerous allusions to his life in the telling of this post-modern odyssey. Along with two of her novels the collection of short stories »Ich mach euch den Garaus« (2002; t: I’ll finish you all off) has been translated into German, whereas her more recent works, such as the novels »Giati skotosa tin kaliteri mou fili« (2003; t: Why I killed my best friend) and »Prinkipissa Saura« (2007; t: Princess lizard), are not yet available to the German-speaking public. In 2008 her short story collection »Tha Ithela« – thirteen short stories connected by intertextual references and continually returning motifs – was translated into English as »I’d like«. Her American publisher was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts’ International Literature Award for this book. It was included in the »Reading the World 2008« book list, used by American publishers to make recommendations to the reading public.
Michalopoulou has also emerged as an author of many children’s books. She has received scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service and the Literary Colloquium in Berlin. Her latest book, »I Hina« (2008; t: The goose) uses German as well as Greek text to tell the story of a family recipe through which it traces the German background of her husband, Dimitris Tsoumplekas. A visual artist, he illustrated the book with a visual record of their travels through German landscapes and secrets.
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