Ersi Sotiropoulos
Ersi Sotiropoulos is the author of sixteen books of fiction and poetry. She studied Philosophy and Cultural Anthropology in Florence and served for nine years as the cultural attaché for the Greek Embassy in Rome.
Her work has been translated into many languages, and has been awarded in Greece with the National Book Prize twice, the Book Critics’ Award and the Athens Academy Prize, the Dante Alighieri Award for her poetry in Italy and has been shortlisted for the European Book Prize. Her novel What’s Left of the Night won the Prix Méditerranée Étranger 2017 in France and the National Translation Award 2019 in the USA.
She has written scripts for film and television and participated in exhibitions of Visual Poetry. She has been a fellow at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, at Princeton University, at Yaddo, at Schloss Wiepersdorf in Germany, at the Sacatar Foundation in Brazil, at Villa Yourcenar in France and at the Bogliasco Foundation and Civitella Ranieri in Italy among others.
Participation in panels and lectures against censorship.
In the spring of 2007, the extreme right-wing politician Konstantinos Plevris brought charges against her novel Zigzag through the Bitter-Orange Trees because it would contain “immoral” scenes, which was followed by a heated debate about censorship, morality and freedom of expression. While waiting for the sentence to be pronounced, the novel was removed from all school libraries in the country. The lawsuit was won and the court overturned the ban and re-introduced the book to school libraries in 2009.
Main Publications
E-learning lessons on What’s Left of the Night and on criticism, University of Athens (2018)
Main Translations
Sparse translations of poems, published in literary magazines.
Professional awards
2019 WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT, National Translation Award, USA
2017 WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT, Prix Méditerranée Etranger, France
2016 WHAT’S LEFT OF THE NIGHT, nominated for the Femina Prize in France and for the European Book Prize
2016 Dante Alighieri Poetry Award, Rome, Italy
2015 EVA, shortlisted for the European Book Prize
2012 FEEL BLUE, DRESS IN RED, National Book Award for best collection of stories in Greece
2011 EVA Athens Academy Prize for best novel
2000 ZIGZAG THROUGH THE BITTER-ORANGE TREES National Book Award for best novel in Greece
2000 ZIGZAG THROUGH THE BITTER-ORANGE TREES Book Critics’ Award for best novel in Greece