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

Made in Europe, speech

Speech at the European Ministry and the Literaturhaus Nordrhein-Westfalen on the occasion of a reading in the Europa erlesen, 2017

Following a process of thought starting with the migratory routes taken by members of her family, Gioulami maps out pathways and follows threads throughout Europe. She contemplates the (metaphorically speaking) clogged pipelines that the people of Greece have had to battle against in the period since the financial crisis.


Über Anpassung (About Adapting), short story

viceversa literatur 10, 2016

Heidi, the literary figure, is a Swiss girl who has to conform and adapt to her foreign surroundings. In this story, she accompanies the narrator in her childish attempts to be a real Swiss girl.


Bermuda Dreieck (Bermuda Triangle), short story

Carte Blanche, Kulturtipp

The narrator transports a disused 1970s iron sculpture from Zurich to a Greek village, while talking on the subject of buying and selling.


Alle Geschichten, die ich kenne, (All the Stories I Know), novel

weissbooks.w, 2015

Alle Geschichten, die ich kenne starts in Zurich, in a dry cleaner’s shop. The shop’s new owner seems to be pursued by bad luck. To try and save her, the narrator sets off on a journey to her home country, Greece. She is pinning her hopes on her Aunt Irini, a brilliant seamstress, who has entered a mysterious pact with Fate. “It’s just a dress”, says the tattooed policeman. “It’s the key to her fate. The key to her fate is in my hands.”


Toutes les histoires que je connais

Traduit par Stefanie Lanni


Die Abenteuer der Jackson Kinder im kanadischen Busch (The Adventures of the Jackson Children in the Canadian Bush), short story

in Wie groß ist die Welt und wie still ist es hier (How Large the World and How Quiet it is Here), a collection of stories set around the Hotel Waldhaus in Sils Maria, weissbooks.w, 2014

Valerie, a student, is invited by an older actor on a journey to Sils Maria and moves around the hotel as if sleepwalking.