DIMOU, NIKOS
Born 1935, Athens, Greece. Graduated from Athens College, (a Greek-American school) 1954.
Parallel studies in Athens of French language and literature. 1954-1960 studied Philosophy (major), Psychology and English Literature (minors), in Munich, Germany (Munich University). Published his doctor's thesis (on philosophical scepticism) in Greece, 25 years later.
1960-1963 he served in the Greek Navy. In quest of a job he ended up in advertising - as a copywriter. 1965 he founded his own agency. After ten years it was one of the top five. It became well known not only for its marketing successes but also for its social and goodwill campaigns (like the "DD Library" and the "Remember Cyprus" sticker). In 1983 Nikos Dimou sold his agency and since then works as a free lance writer.
He published his first book (poetry) in 1953. There are now fifty three titles of his, most still in print. Essays, short prose, satire, philosophy, poetry, and political theory. Although he never wrote a novel, his books have sold well - they have been reprinted many times. Some have become best sellers. Especially his collection of aphorisms: «On the Unhappiness of being Greek» (38 printings). His latest books include an anthology from his work "50 years Nikos Dimou", his full autobiography "My Ways" ("Oi Dromoi mou") and a selection from his essays and political writings "Exercises in Freedom" ("Askiseis Eleftherias").
Although he thinks his most important task is writing books, he has also worked in the media for over forty years. He was a columnist for the Sunday editions of leading Greek dailies («To Vima», «Kathimerini», «Eleutherotypia», «Ethnos») and magazines. He was also the first Greek writer to host television talk-shows on literary and ideological issues ("Dialogues" 1987, "Adventures in Ideas" 1992). He also created radio programmes. He has received two journalism awards: the Ipectsi (for Greek-Turkish friendship) and the Botsis. In 2008 he was elected “Journalist of the Year”. For his overall literary and philosophical work he has also received the "Mitropoulos" medal. Because of his non conformist attitude, he has had to resign 11 times from main media.
He is quadrilingual (Greek, English, French, German) and has published translations of poetry and prose from all these languages - plus Latin and Ancient Greek. His evergreen best-seller "On the Unhappiness of being Greek" has been translated into many languages (German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish and Chinese) and is selling very well all over the world. A new book of his ("The Germans are to blame for everything") has been published in Germany in 2014. He is a notorious lover of cats and independence.
His hobbies are computers (a dedicated Net Surfer for 25 years), motoring and photography. He was the first Greek writer to create a personal site in 1997 (www.ndimou.gr). In 2006 he opened two blogs (nikosdimou.blogspot.com and doncat.blogspot.com, with considerable success - 90.000 comments in the first year). One of these blogs continues as a olumn in a Sunday paper. He has published two books of photographs and has had three exhibitions. He has held regular monthly columns in the leading Greek car, computer and photography magazines.
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