Nikos Katsalidas was born in Ano Lesinitsa, in the area Theologos of Sarandë in south Albania. He is the son of folklorist Grigoris Katsalidas.
Today, he lives in Athens. He studied literature in Tirana. A poet, prose writer, translator and essayist with several honors and awards. He is a member and honorary member of various literary associations and societies. He served as a philologist in his homeland and after the fall of the military Junta in Greece in the mid-seventies, as a literary editor in the press of the Greek Ethnic Minority of Albania.
His poems are included in various world anthologies in English, French, German, Italian, Bulgarian, Romanian and Spanish, while he has translated the works of fifty Greek poets and prose writers into Albanian. He is one of the founders of the Democratic Union of the National Greek Minority (DEEEM “Omonoia”) In 2001-2002 he served as Minister of State for Human Rights in Albania. During 2004-2008 he served as Cultural Attaché at the Albanian Embassy in Athens. In 2001 he was awarded the Balkan prize “Aimos” in Sofia for his poetry collection “Ta Ekato Ekatofylla tis Poulias”. In 2002 he was awarded the “Silver Pen” Award by the Albanian Ministry of Culture for his translation of renowned Greek poet Odysseas Elytis. In 2018 he was awarded the Beneficence Prize by the Greek Society of Translators for his translation of Odysseas Elytis and Kostas Ouranis. Nikos Katsalidas is included in the Albanian Encyclopedia Dictionary of the Academy of Sciences of Albania and in the World Encyclopedia Who is Who (2012), among famous personalities. In 2012, he was decorated by the President of the Republic of Albania with the highest medal of the order of letters “Great Artist”. His novel “Peri Omonoias kai Allon Daimonion”, 2019, was shortlisted for The Athens Prize for Literature. Nikos Katsalidas is a regular member of the Hellenic Authors’ Society.