Early life:
I was born in my mother's village, Agrinio, on mainland Greece. It was a cold afternoon on a Saturday sometime in 1978. A year later my parents moved to Athens to find work. They finally settled in Perama, a working class suburb near the port of Pireas, where I lived until the age of seventeen. Not long after we moved there I suffered asthma attacks and was diagnosed with child asthma. The doctor suggested that I spend as much time as possible near the sea. To help with my illness, my family rented a place near Porto Germeno for a few months in spring and summer, every year, until I was old enough to go to school. My father commuted to work, driving 70 miles back and forth, everyday for years. He had to work extra shifts and overtime, most times with little sleep, to manage. In the heart of the summer, to save some money on rent, we camped under the pine trees. In the mornings I would wake up and walk out the tent straight into the sea. My love for the Mediterranean Sea and her people was engraved on my soul ever since. I was cured from my bronchitis but never from my romance for the Mediterranean region. While in school I discovered poetry and prose. During high school I kept writing poems and short stories which I handed to my friends. I dreamt of going to university to study literature and philosophy; however my skills in mathematics and physics led me to study engineering and materials science.
Later and Present Life:
When I was seventeen I moved to the UK to work and study, on a EU scholarship, Mechanical Engineering at the University of Hull. I received my MEng in 2000 and was awarded a Ph.D. in 2003. On May 2006 I got married to the love of my life Stella.
During my time at University I was involved with music. I used to sing and write the lyrics for a heavy metal band I joined during my second year at uni. Over the years I got involved in a number of music projects and genres like funk, blues, rock, phsychedelic rock and heavy metal. This was a period of experimentation and self discovery which led me astray from literature. I had given up on writing prose for nearly over a decade, although I never stopped writing poetry. It was during my time in Industry that I felt compelled to write a novel. I wrote two novels and numerous short stories during that period, but I never considered them important enough to submit queries with publishers.
I lived in the UK for a total of fourteen years, studying and working in academia and industry. I lived mostly in the north of England. Fourteen years later, in 2007, I moved back south. I applied and received funding from the EU and the Cypriot research promotion foundation and ever since I work as a researcher at the University of Cyprus. In 2009-2010 I finished writing 'The secret of the elements' which is the first novel I strongly believed I had to publish. I now live permanently in Nicosia. In April 2011 I decided to work part time at the University of Cyprus researching on nanocomposite materials for biomedical applications. I wanted to have more free time to invest on people, my family, my travels (although money for travelling is hard to get when working part time), reading and writing.
During my time at University I was involved with music. I used to sing and write the lyrics for a heavy metal band I joined during my second year at uni. Over the years I got involved in a number of music projects and genres like funk, blues, rock, phsychedelic rock and heavy metal. This was a period of experimentation and self discovery which led me astray from literature. I had given up on writing prose for nearly over a decade, although I never stopped writing poetry. It was during my time in Industry that I felt compelled to write a novel. I wrote two novels and numerous short stories during that period, but I never considered them important enough to submit queries with publishers.
I lived in the UK for a total of fourteen years, studying and working in academia and industry. I lived mostly in the north of England. Fourteen years later, in 2007, I moved back south. I applied and received funding from the EU and the Cypriot research promotion foundation and ever since I work as a researcher at the University of Cyprus. In 2009-2010 I finished writing 'The secret of the elements' which is the first novel I strongly believed I had to publish. I now live permanently in Nicosia. In April 2011 I decided to work part time at the University of Cyprus researching on nanocomposite materials for biomedical applications. I wanted to have more free time to invest on people, my family, my travels (although money for travelling is hard to get when working part time), reading and writing.
Themes and Influences
In my stories the dominating theme is the social evolution of man, the human mind and its fragile sanity. I like to develop characters that fail to adhere to the current model of society and I particularly enjoy to philosophise on the reasons behind the ineptitude of some individuals to follow mainstream life. I am heavily affected by human struggle and suffering and the problems caused by resisting conformity.
Some of the writers that somehow influenced or affected me literary are:
Milan Kundera, Charles Bukowski, Gabriel G. Marquez, Jose Saramago, Emil Zola, Jean-Paul Sartre, Luis Aragon, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Odysseas Elytis, Franz Kafka, Derek Walcott, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekhov and many others
Some of the writers that somehow influenced or affected me literary are:
Milan Kundera, Charles Bukowski, Gabriel G. Marquez, Jose Saramago, Emil Zola, Jean-Paul Sartre, Luis Aragon, Leo Tolstoy, James Joyce, Odysseas Elytis, Franz Kafka, Derek Walcott, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekhov and many others
Photographs by Stella Gravani
