Vassilis Vassilikos was born in Northern Greece in 1934. He graduated from Thessaloniki University with a degree in Law and has worked as a journalist, script writer and film director. Between 1996 and 2004 he served as Permanent Delegate of Greece to UNESCO.

Vassilikos has published more than one hundred books, including novels, short stories, poetry and plays. He is the most widely translated Greek author, together with Kazantzakis, Ritsos and Cavafy. His most famous political novel Z (1967) has been translated into 32 languages, and was made into a movie by Costas Gavras.

His trilogy The Plant, The Well, The Angel (translated into English by Edmund Keeley) won the “12” Award in 1961 and has been translated into many languages.