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Nick Papandreou was born in Berkeley in 1956, went to high school in Canada, studied economics and political science at Yale, and earned a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton in 1986. After Greek military service and a few years at the World Bank, he quit the world of economics. He received an MFA in creative writing from Vemont University (1994) and turned to writing on a more full-time basis. Little Greek Godfather is his first script, co-authored with Olga Malea, and appeared in Greek movie theaters in the fall of 2007.
The movie was based on his first novel, A Crowded Heart (Picador/Penguin) which was short-listed for the 1999 Los Angeles First Fiction Award and was a runaway bestseller in Greece.
He was written seven books so far, most in Greek. Essays, articles and short stories have appeared in anthologies and journals such as Antioch Review, The Literary Review, Threepenny Review, AGNI, Quarterly West, Harvard Review, Quarry, Wascana Review, The Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, Indiana Review as well as in Greek literary journals such as LEXI, and Entefktirion and elsewhere.
A work of non-fiction, Mikis and Manos: A tale of two composers, (2007) explores the relationship between music and politics in Greek society while Life in the First Person: Andreas Papandreou and the art of political narrative, (2003) explores the use of metaphor and narrative in the speeches of Andreas Papandreou, former prime minister of Greece.
He is a regular columnist for a number of Greek magazines such as The Economic Review and others. He is presently heading a project to save the Asopos river in the province of Viotia.
Some distinctions
Guest Speaker, Durrell School of Corfu, 2007 and 2006.
Keynote Speaker, Vienna Cultural Center, Spring, 2007.
Notable Essays of 2004, in Best American Essays, 2005, edited by Robert Atwan for Growing Up Bilingual, (Antioch Review, 2004)
Golden Ikaromennipus Award (Greek Science Fiction), 2000 for short story: “A finger, quiet as a pen.”
Best Fiction: Forty Years of EXILE. Parthena Earns Her Name was selected for inclusion in an anthology of the best stories published in Exile magazine, Toronto, Canada, 2002.
Top twenty Greek books of the 20th Century, measured in terms of overall sales, for Father Dancing.
Best first fiction Award Los Angeles Times (short listed) 1999
Books in English
A Crowded Heart, (St. Martin’s/ Picador 1998). In England published under the title Father Dancing (Penguin, 1996) Also available in German (Knaur) and Arabic.
Mikis and Manos: A story of two composers About the rivalry between the man who wrote Zorba the Greek (Mikis Theodorakis) and the man who wrote Never on Sunday (Manos Hadjidakis). Greek and English, Kerkyra Publishers, 2007.
Books in Greek
Pocket Essays. Very short essays on language, Greece, America and personal concerns. (Greek only) Kastaniotis, 2007.
How I Saved the World, novella. World Bank economist in Algeria tries to save the day – and himself. Kastaniotis, 2005. (Greek)
Andreas Papandreou: Life in the first person and the art of political narration. Non-fiction. A look at this politician’s use of metaphor, simile and narrative. (Greek, Kastaniotis, 2003). English version under preparation.
Kleptomnemon: The Thief of Memory, Novel. Princeton classics graduate dreams other people’s memories. (Kastaniotis, 2003).
A Fine Line. Collection of short stories originally published in English. (Kastaniotis, 1997)
A Crowded Heart/ Father Dancing, Novel. American teenager with a greek politician for a father comes of age during turbulent times. (Kastaniotis, 1995).
Movie Script
Little Greek Godfather, (Πρώτη Φορά Νονός) co-written with director Olga Malea, distributed in Greek theaters October, 2007. (Greek with English subtitles, based on the book A Crowded Heart.)
Mikis Theodorakis, based on the life of the famous Greek composer, set to start filming in 2010.
Selected Short stories in English (published in USA and Canada)
Parthena earns her name, AGNI, (Boston University), Spring, 1998, also published in EXILE, Toronto, Canada, 1999 and re-printed in 40 Years Best of Exile, 2000.
A hearse full of onions, Paralos, Princeton, Spring, 1996
Air force diaries, Quarterly West, (Utah) Spring, 1996
The Night of the Arctic Loons, Wascana Review, (Winnipeg) Winter, 1995
How Henry learns, Quarry, (Ontario) Winter, 1995
All the jasmine in the world, Antietam Review, (Virginia) Spring, 1994
My first baptism, Harvard Review, (Boston) Spring 1994
The zookeeper of Baghdad, Indiana Review, (Ιndiana) Spring 1993
North of Barrie, Quarry (Ontario) Summer, 1991.
Translations
Mantinades – Cretan Rhyming Couplets, POETRY, April 2009, with Alicia Stallings.
Selected Essays (English)
Table Talk: Last days of George Papandreou Threepenny Review, Summer, 2009.
Exile: Outside Definition / IOWA International writing Program electronic journal, Summer, 2008. http://iwp.uiowa.edu/paros/2008paros/index.html
Imagined Countries, anthology Open Book: Essays from the Postgraduate Writers’ Conference (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007).
On family, Threepenny Review (San Francisco, Summer 2006)
Growing Up Bilingual, in an anthology called The Genius of Language, (Pantheon, 2004), edited by Wendy Lesser.
Split Self, Antioch Review, (Ohio, Winter 2004)
Census Day. The Literary Review (Farleigh Dickenson University, New Jersey). 2002.
The end of history and the last author: Wespennest, Summer, 2002, Vienna.
All that is Solid Melts into Air, The Threepenny Review, Winter 1999
Historical Memory and German atrocities in the town of Distomo, George Papandreou Foundation, 1999.