Wooden Swords

Pandelis Kaliotsos was born in 1925 in Athens. There he spent his first years studying and taking whichever jobs he could find. He later left the city, wanting to become a monk, but he only lasted a couple of years. He began writing since 1943 believing that literature – and art, in general – was a means of psychotherapy and not of show. He kept writing for twenty years without publishing anything. He began his career in 1964 with the novel The Middle Wall which – being in the form of a handwritten manuscript – was first published as a serial in the magazine “Postman” and was then published as a book (Fexis Publishing 1964, Kedros Publishing 1971, Patakis Publishers 2001). Then, there came a flux of novels, short-stories, novellas and children’s books. The Decembrian Night was honours in 1979 by the Greek State Award for Novels, while in 1997 the Wooden Swords – a world renowned book – won the Children’s Book Award of Costa Rica. In 1997 his children’s fiction book A Sack of Hair won First Prize by the Greek Section of IBBY, and in 2002 David’s Sling was honoured with the Greek State Award for Children’s Literature. Available as well by Patakis Publishers are the books Military Exercises (2003), The Vacuum’s Behaviour (2004), and The Novelist’s Workshop (2005).