Vassilis Alexakis ou le choix impossible entre le grec et le fran ais

Vassilis Alexakis has the particularity of writing either in French or in Greek and following a novelist career in the two countries: his literary bilingualism, associated with a self-translation practice, is rather uncommon among foreign writers who have chosen French as a writing language. Running from the military junta that takes the power in Greece in 1967, Alexakis exiles himself to France and publishes three novels in French. At the end of the 70’s, an identity crisis leads him to come to Athens more and more regularly, and above all to learn his mother tongue again. After the publication of Talgo in Greek, Alexakis settles down in the conflicting situation of being between two languages, situation that reflects his nomadism. However, the links between the host and native languages have calmed down for the last decade, in a polyphonic work tinged with autobiography where Greek and French voices are enriching one another.