Dimitris Lyacos

Dimitris Lyacos
photo: Katerina Fougiatzi
Born	(1966-10-19) October 19, 1966 (age 50) Athens, Greece
Occupation	Poet, playwright
Nationality	Greek/Italian
Period	Contemporary
Genre	Cross-genre
Literary movement	Postmodern literature
Notable works	Z213: Exit (2009)
Website
www.lyacos.net

Dimitris Lyacos (Greek: Δημήτρης Λυάκος; born October 19, 1966) is a contemporary Greek poet and playwright. He is the author of the Poena Damni trilogy. Renowned for its genre-defying form and the avant-garde combination of themes from literary tradition with elements from ritual, religion, philosophy and anthropology, Lyacos’s work reexamines grand narratives in the context of some of the enduring motifs of the Western Canon. Despite its size - the overall trilogy counts no more than two hundred pages - Poena Damni took over a period of thirty years to complete, with the individual books revised and republished in different editions during this period and arranged around a cluster of concepts including the scapegoat, the quest, the return of the dead, redemption, physical suffering, mental illness. Lyacos’s characters are always at a distance from society as such, fugitives, like the narrator of Z213: Exit, outcasts in a dystopian hinterland like the characters in With the People from the Bridge, or marooned, like the protagonist of The First Death whose struggle for survival unfolds on a desert-like island. Poena Damni has been construed as an "allegory of unhappiness" together with works of authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Thomas Pynchon as well as exhibiting characteristics of the postmodern sublime.

Lyacos was born and raised in Athens where he studied Law. From 1988-1991 he lived in Venice. In 1992 he moved to London. He studied philosophy at University College London with analytical philosophers Ted Honderich and Tim Crane focusing on Epistemology and Metaphysics, Ancient Greek philosophy and Wittgenstein. In 2005 he moved to Berlin. He is currently based in Berlin and Athens.