Filippos D. Drakontaeidis

Philip D. Dracodaidis was born on September 17, 1940, in Chalkida. His father, an active member of the National Resistance, was executed in April 1944. He graduated from Varvakeio High School in 1958 and passed the entrance exams for the Higher School of Economics the same year, but due to financial difficulties, he did not complete his studies there. He was accepted into the Preparatory Year at the Sorbonne and, after exams, enrolled at the University of Sorbonne, where he completed undergraduate studies in philology and history in 1968. In 1993, he was accepted at the University of Montpellier Paul Valery (Montpellier III), where he earned a master's degree in classical letters in 1995 and a doctoral degree in 1997 (Adamantios Korais Chair) for his dissertation "The Philosophers of Ancient Greece and Their Sources in the Essays of Michel de Montaigne." He made his literary debut in 1962 and has published novels, novellas, and short story collections. In 1995, he renounced part of his literary work and re-edited the novels: "Comments on the Case," "In the Footsteps of the Performance," "Towards Ophrynio," "The Statue," "The Message," "The Facade." These six titles form the collection "Hexameter." His essays address contemporary issues such as the politics of terror in the 20th century ("The February Century"), the evolution of literature from the Renaissance to the present day ("The Tale of Literature"), the changes technology brings to the perception of personal and collective historical memory ("Memory and Memory," "Out of Context"), and the handling of the question of what? as an obligation of thinking ("Discourse of Ruins"). His translations from French and Spanish introduce to the Greek public the complete and annotated texts of Michel de Montaigne ("Essays"), François Rabelais ("Gargantua and Pantagruel"), the Spanish priest and thinker Baltasar Gracián ("The Oracle and the Art of Prudence," "The Hero"), the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa ("The Poems of Alberto Caeiro"), and the Mexican novelist Juan Rulfo ("The Burning Plain"). Additionally, he translated for the Art Theatre - Karolos Koun the work of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán "Divine Words," which was staged at Frinichou Street. He is a founding member of the Society of Authors, a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France, a Knight of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Spain), a member of the Greek Crime Fiction Club, and has been awarded the second State Novel Prize (1981). He has collaborated and continues to collaborate with literary publications, writes articles, and presents books by Greek and foreign authors and thinkers in magazines and newspapers. In 2015, he donated his personal archive (1955-2010), literary and scientific books, foreign magazines, and art objects to the Benaki Museum, his collections of literary magazines to the Society of Corfiot Studies - Solomos Museum, and art books to the under-formation Basil and Elise Goulandris Museum in Athens. He is proficient in French, English, and Spanish. He maintains the website: www.philipdracodaidis.gr, where one can find summaries and characteristic excerpts of his works.