The Watermelon Thief

Christos Boulotis was born in 1952 in Myrina, Limnos. He studied history and archaeology at the University of Athens, and did postgraduate studies in archaeology, classical literature and comparative linguistics at the universities of Heidelberg and Wurzburg, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on religious images in Minoan and Mycenean art.

In archaeology he specialized in prehistory and Aegean art.

Boulotis has conducted research excavations in Crete, Santorini, Ancient Olympia and Limnos. He has taught archaeology at the Ionian University (Corfu) and in postgraduate departments of Athens University, and history at the Athens School of Fine Arts. He has written numerous articles on archaeology for Greek and foreign academic journals.

Boulotis has been writing for children since 1987, and has had 20 books published by various Greek publishers. His first children’s book, The Strange Love of the Horse and the Beech, was awarded the Pier Paolo Vergerio by Padua University (Premio per la poesia: XVII edizione del premio Europeo di Letteratura Giovanile). In 1994 the Greek Children’s Book Circle honored him for his book With the Wings of Pegasus.

Boulotis also writes children’s book criticism and researches the history of children’s books in Greece.

His personal collection of 6,000 old toys and children’s books formed the core of the collection of the Museum of the History of Children’s Toys and Books, which was founded in his birthplace, Limnos.