Gregoris Haliakopoulos–Author, Poet, Journalist
Gregoris Haliakopoulos was born in 1958 in Filiatra, Messenia. In 1976, he was admitted to the Department of Statistics of the Higher Industrial School of Piraeus (A.V.S.P.), which he left early, while in 1992-1993, he attended courses in Theoretical Graphology (Characteristics) in the Dimitrios Kottakis’ laboratory. For several years, he worked at Piraeus Bank.
In the early 1990s, Gregoris Haliakopoulos co-founded the "Poetry Elves" unconventional group, which operated for about ten years with theatre, poetry evenings and cultural events on the streets (mainly in the centre of Athens).
In 1994-1995, he published and ran the literary newspaper "Aisthisis Logou ki Technis (Speech & Art Sence)", distributed free of charge to universities, schools and bookstores. In fact, with the newspaper campaign "Send a book to the cell", the Korydallos Men's and Women's prisons were enriched with 2,500 books. Journalistically, he collaborated with the newspapers "Kathimerini tis Kyriaki", "Niki", "Ependitis tou Savvatou", "Real News", "Ethnos", "Eleftheria Kalamatas" and with the magazines "Tachydromos", "Epidi", "Paper", "Icons" etc.
Gregoris Haliakopoulos debuted in literature in 1984 with the poetry collection "Future Past Today" (Tsapepa publications). Since then, he has dealt with all kinds of literature, such as poetry, short stories, novels, fairy tales, essays, biographies and theatre plays.
In 1997, he published archives of Dromokaiteio Mental Hospital (of the pre-and post-occupation period) about the important personalities who lived in the psychiatric hospital, such as Georgios Vizyinos, Romos Filyras, Gerasimos Vokos, Nikolaos Dragoumis, Costas Krystallis and many more. His work has been presented at the Goulandris Horn Foundation, the Gennadius Library, the Municipality of Athens, the Numismatic Museum, the Museum of the City of Athens, the Old Parliament of the Hellenes and elsewhere, both in Athens and the region.
In 2009, he first published in the daily press the anecdotal teenage poetry of Kostis Palamas to Isabella Anninos, as well as unpublished letters of Kazantzakis and Elytis, while in 2011, he published the unpublished Gerasimos Markoras’ poetry and a large part of his letters.
In 2013, his fairy tale "The Journey of Fereydun" (Persian poet Fereydun Faryad) qualified for the State Prize, while he took second place in the Panhellenic "Reader" Competition. From then until 2019, he visited many schools in the country, talking to more than 60,000 students about the beauty of diversity. Also, his fairy tale "The Secret of Belissarios", regarding the great Greek painter of Naples of the 16th century, Belissarios Korensios, took third place in the Panhellenic "Reader" Competition in 2016.
Gregoris Haliakopoulos has made countless adaptations of plays. At the same time, his works have been staged in theatres such as the "Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation", the "Athens Music Hall", the "Jenny Karezis", the "Underground", the "Tesseris Epoches Theatre", in the "Experimental Stage of Kalamata" and elsewhere.
In 2015, he collaborated as a commentator with the television stations "ERT" and "Blue Sky", while he is also a radio producer at "Orange Radio". During 2016-2017, he was the Artistic Director of the "Knossos" theatre. He has also written the research texts of historical content for twenty documentaries that were played on "ERT" and the video-on-demand channel "Cosmote History".
Finally, he is the coordinator of the "Panhellenic Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Professional Reintegration Union" journalistic group, which operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. At the same time, he writes for the newspaper "Eleftheria Kalamatas" at regular intervals.