Katerina Malakate
Katerina Malakate is a Greek novelist and short story writer whose work explores identity and trauma, Through lyrical and confessional autofictional prose.
Katerina Malakate was born in Athens, Greece, in 1978. She studied Pharmacy and obtained her MSc from the University of Athens in 2001. In 2024, she completed a Master’s in Creative Writing. She is married and has two sons.
Her first novel, No One Wants to Die (2013), https://www.booktalks.gr/neoelliniki-logotexnia/neoelliniki-pezografia/kaneis-den-thelei-na-pethanei.html tells the story of an eighty year old woman with locked-in syndrome who switches bodies with her thirty year old caregiver and begins wandering through Athens. The same year the novel was published, Katerina left her career in pharmacy and opened Booktalks, an independent bookshop-café in Athens. https://www.facebook.com/booktalkscafe/
In 2009, she founded Diavazontas https://diavazontas.blogspot.com/, a book-review blog, and the homonymous Facebook group, https://www.facebook.com/groups/diavazontas which has since grown into the largest readers’ community in Greece, with more than 160,000 members. Katerina continues to run this community, along with Booktalks Bookclub https://www.facebook.com/groups/1741745026044616 , which meets monthly, both in person and online, to discuss a shared read. From 2014 to 2019, she also hosted a literary radio show, interviewing many of the most influential voices in the Greek publishing world.
Her second novel, The Plan (2016), https://www.booktalks.gr/neoelliniki-logotexnia/neoelliniki-pezografia/to-sxedio-el.html a post-apocalyptic story inspired by the Grexit crisis, was shortlisted for the Klepsydra Award. Her third novel, Faceless (Metaichmio, 2020), https://www.booktalks.gr/neoelliniki-logotexnia/neoelliniki-pezografia/xoris-prosopo.html follows a man who loses his face and later regains it through a transplant. Her short stories have appeared in various anthologies and online literary magazines.
In 2024, Katerina was diagnosed with a rare mitochondrial disorder (MIDD), as well as autism and ADHD. Disheartened by the lack of support for late-diagnosed autistics in Greece, she began advocating on social media for disability and autism awareness.
She has recently completed her fourth novel, her first written entirely in English, an autofictional exploration of autism and childhood trauma.