Yiannis Xanthoulis was born in 1947, in Alexandroupolis, Evros. His parents were refugees from Eastern Thrace. He studied journalism, drawing and theatre costume. He has been working as a journalist and columnist in newspapers, magazines and radio since 1969. He has also worked in children’s theatre and he has written and illustrated children’s books. Over thirty of his comic texts and plays have been staged in Greece. He has also been writing for many years texts for revues.

The Great Murder was his first novel published in 1981. Other works that have been published include: The Come-and-Go Family,  (1982), A Summer Lost in the Winter (1984), The Showman will Never Show Up (1985), Dead Liqueur (1987), The Paper-like September of our Heart (1989), The Pink I Couldn’t Forget (1991), The Coffee Era (1992), Monday of the Innocents (1994), Strawberry Train (1996), … And Then Came the Bees (1998), The Turk in the Garden (2001), The Christmas Tango (2003), Uncle Takis (2005), Viper’s Milk (2007), The Istanbul of my Disrespectful Fears (2008), Miss Pelagia (2010) and The Teacher’s Son (2012). Some of his books have been filmed for TV and cinema. His work has been translated in French, English, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Danish as well as in many other languages. He has also published the autobiographic narrative Dining with Ghosts as well as an anthology of literary texts set in Istanbul; Istanbul: a city in literature (2004).

He lives in Athens and he is a member of the Reporters Union of the Daily Newspapers of Athens.
 

PLAYS

Teacher in the Water (Alice in the fish country), 1983

A Mad Mad Apartment Building, 1981

Climb on the Roof So We Can Eat the Cloud, 1980

Planet Fuur, 1980

A summer – a a little summer, 1980

Drum, Trumpet and Red Bonbons, 1979

The Magician with the Colors, 1978