Writer

Drawing: Wojtek Klakla

Dagny Gioulami was born in Bern in 1970 to a Swiss father and a Greek mother. (Dagny is a Swedish forename – one of her grandmothers was from Sweden – and Gioulami is a Greek surname). She studied drama at the Zurich University of Fine Arts and was an actress in the permanent ensemble of the Städtische Bühnen Münster. She has also appeared in productions at the Schauspielhaus Zurich, Theater Basel, Stadttheater Bern and for many smaller companies.

Since 2000 Gioulami has been writing librettos and stage works, for companies such as the Opernhaus Zurich, Staatsoper Hannover, The Opera Group London, Stadttheater Bern or the Landschaftstheater Ballenberg. Her opera Birds. Barks. Bones. (music: Edward Rushton) won a 2005 British Composers Award.

Between 2010 and 2013 she studied at the Swiss Literary Institute (Schweizerische Literaturinstitut) in Biel (Master CAP, Bern University of Fine Arts). Her debut novel, Alle Geschichten, die ich kenne (All the Stories I Know) was published in early 2015 by weissbooks.w, Frankfurt am Main. Gioulami has received many accolades and awards for her novel, including the Literature Prize of the Canton of Berne, and it was on the shortlist of the Rauriser Literature Prize. She lives in Zurich.

Catalogue of Works

San Keller: Künstler und Polizisten (Artists and Policemen)

Dramatisation of recollections by various artists. Shifting Identities, Kunsthaus Zurich, 2008

The performance artist San Keller asked artists he knows to provide reports of any incidents with the police they had been involved in. Dagny Gioulami turned the anecdotes into theatrical scenes which San Keller then performed in the style of a Punch-and-Judy show during the exhibition.