The Charlotte Gusay Literary Agency is pleased to report that our client - Greek writer Alexis Stamatis - has received the National Endowment for the Arts International Literature Award. Bestselling and well-known Greek writer Alexis Stamatis' novel American Fugue was inspired by the American midwest when he was in the United States in 2004. American Fugue was published September 2008 by Etruscan Press. Author Alexis Stamatis has published eight novels and six collections of poetry published in Greece. Two have been translated and published, two into English and Bar Flaubert - into several foreign editions, including a recently released UK edition from Arcadia Publishing. Stamatis is also a journalist. He covered the Olympics for Il Giornale, Equipe and others. He was in the US on a Fulbright during the fall of 2004 participating in the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. An English translation (by NEA award-winning translator Karen Emmerich) of Stamatis brilliant novel Mother Ash -- with its intriguing theme of “human spontaneous combustion” -- will be published in 2011 by American publisher Red Hen Press.

Here’s an excerpt from the NEA announcement: To support the translation and publication of Amerikaniki Fouga (American Fugue), a novel by Greek author Alexis Stamatis. Born in 1960, Stamatis has worked as Chief Editor for Foreign Literature for the Metaixmio Publishing House in Greece, in addition to having worked as a journalist, literary critic, and architect. His honors include the 1st Award of the City of Athens.

American Fugue translator Diane Thiel is the author of six books of poetry, nonfiction, and creative writing pedagogy. She has translated the work of Alfonsina Storni, César Vallejo, Sor Juana, and Nikos Kavadias, and has taught several university courses in translation. She will work on this translation with her husband Constantine Hadjilambrinos, a professor at the University of New Mexico.

Etruscan Press is a non-profit cooperative of poets and writers working to produce and promote books that nurture dialogue among genres, achieve a distinctive voice, and reshape the literary and cultural histories of which we are a part.

Other Books by Alexis Stamatis: The Charlotte Gusay Literary Agency represents all of Stamatis’ work here in the U.S.

For complete details on the announcement of the National Endowment for the Arts International Literature Award: http://www.arts.gov/news/news07/IntlLit.html