Autograph

Mimika (Dimitra) Kranaki (1922–2008) was born in Lamia, the daughter of the officer Ioannis Kranakis and Despoina, née Makropoulou – sister of Ioannis Makropoulos, a minister in the anti-Venizelist faction, and Dimitrios Makropoulos, a major businessman – who died when the author was four years old. She spent her childhood in Athens with her mother’s brothers. She attended the Girls’ School of the Hellenic Educational Association and the Arsakeio, and studied law and political science at the University of Athens (1937–1942) and piano and harmony at the Athens Conservatoire (1942–1945). During the Metaxas dictatorship, she was arrested for participating in anti-dictatorship demonstrations (1937 and 1939), whilst during the German occupation he joined the EAM and subsequently the KKE, from which he was expelled in 1947 along with Kostas Papaioannou and Adonis Kyrou. In December 1945, he boarded the ship ‘Mataroa’ along with other young Greek scientists and artists and, with the help of a scholarship from the French Institute, left for France. From then on, she lived in Paris, where she studied philosophy on a French government scholarship at the Sorbonne University, conducted research at the C.R.N.S. (1949–1957), and after completing her doctoral thesis entitled ‘Emil Lask et le néocantisme’, she worked as a lecturer in German philosophy at the University of Nanterre (1967–1985) and acquired French citizenship. She was also a contributor to the television station “France-Culture”. She married the writer and professor of philosophy Yvon Belaval, from whom she divorced in 1967.

She made her literary debut in 1933 with the publication of poems in the magazine "Diáplasis ton Paídon", whilst in 1944 and 1945 she published two sociological studies in the Archive of Sociology and Theory of the Sciences. In 1947, she published her novel "Contre temps" (written in Greek in Paris) in Athens, and three years later the collection of novellas "Tsirko". After settling in Paris, she produced publications, translations and editions in French. Her last appearance in the field of Greek-language literature took place in 1993 with the publication of the novel "Philhellenes" ("Twenty-four letters of an Odyssey"). In 2003, in the magazine "Diavazo", and subsequently in 2004 in book form, she published twelve autobiographical texts entitled "Autography" (published by Ikaros).

Mimika Kranaki belongs to the post-war generation of Greek prose writers, specifically those who were forced to leave Greece due to their political convictions and have since lived or continue to live in European countries. Her Greek-language prose straddles the boundary between realistic and modernist writing, with a strong presence of lyrical and musical elements in her prose. In "The Philhellenes", Kranaki explores the theme of nostalgia among Greek intellectuals living abroad and their unique relationship with modern Greek reality. She died in Paris in April 2008.