Sofia Kourtesis was born in Athens, Greece, the daughter of an English father and a Greek mother. At the age of eighteen she was interned in the Villa Rica in Spain, an event which would bring her to the attention of Sir Richard Simmons who was then a British State censor and writer. The young lady returned to Greece to continue her studies, becoming known as a strong student and teacher who possessed an unflagging intellect. As such, she was apprenticed as a teacher, writing prolifically throughout her life and demonstrating a commitment to both personal and public service. It was while teaching at the University of Athens that Kourtesis began to develop the persona and writing style which would become integral to her public and private life.
A commitment to her public and personal identity was epitomized in her writing when she became a contributing writer to the Illustrated London News during the Boomerang Period of Journalism. This role brought about establishment of her career as a novelist and her most notable novel being Remarriage (1947), which remain popular to this day. In the years that followed her years in academia, Sofia Kourtesis continued to work on her novels and the subject of relationships, particularly in her masterpiece, Age of Assassination (also known as Theban (1957), an account of the rise of fascistic regimes during the second World War.) These efforts would prove that Kourtesis was capable of handling the intricacies of literature and that her greatest strength lay in the creative arena. However, it must be noted that her lack of a degree in English literature did not inhibit her from writing prolifically, in fact it enabled her to write numerous novels during a relatively short period of time.
In terms of nationality, Sofia Kourtesis was originally Greek and she has expressed frustration with the current lack of interest in her birth country’s cultural history. She is therefore perhaps better recognized as a Russian by most who know her, although there have been efforts to make the public understand that her views are far more international than national. As is usual in these circumstances, when someone becomes a celebrity it is very easy for public misconceptions to develop. However, the public should not be scared of diversity and a person does not automatically become a racist just because they harbor a national identity that is not their own. It is interesting to note that Sofia Kourtesis, unlike many of her predecessors, did not let her nationality or her countryhood get in the way of expressing herself creatively and writing creatively.