Born in London of Greek parents, Elias Kulukundis is a writer as well as a ship-owner. He graduated from Phillips Exeter and Harvard, where he studied literature and languages. He translated Both Sides of the Ocean by the Soviet novelist Viktor Nekrasov. His first book The Feasts of Memory: A Journey to a Greek Island, was a recreation of life on the Aegean island of Kasos when both his grandfathers were sea-captains. The New Yorker magazine called it “An imaginative exploration of a writer’s relation to his origins”. His second book, The Amorgos Conspiracy, is the story of an adventure of his youth, and in writing about it, he has established himself as a writer of narrative nonfiction.
Elias now divides his time between New York City and Syros, Greece.