Kostas Kaltsas

Victorious Dust, the debut novel by Kostas Kaltsas, follows three generations of a Greek family through the recent history of contemporary Greece, from the end of the Second World War and the outbreak of the Greek Civil War in December 1944 to the infamous 2015 bailout referendum. The book engages in conversation with numerous writers, incorporating their words in the narrative, but also challenges readers to contend with traumatic collective experiences and the pervasive sense of defeat they have left behind. A biologist by training and a former bookseller by profession, Kostas Kaltsas was born in 1977 and completed a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Southampton, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, with Victorious Dust as his thesis. His writings in Greek have appeared in various literary magazines and as forewords to the Greek editions of books, such as Rachel Cusk’s Outline and William Gass’ Cartesian Sonata. His translations include works by David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem, and Ishmael Reed. Victorious Dust has already been published in Serbian and an English edition is forthcoming.