 On her mother's side she is descended from the island of Cephalonia and Athens and on her father's from Smyrna in Asia Minor.From a very young age she took part in the radio programs of her grandmother, Antigone Metaxa (Aunt Lena) on Hellenic Public Radio (EIR) telling stories and singing songs as well as in the radio plays of her grandfather, Kostas Krontiras’ "Wednesday at the Theater", producing sounds in collaboration with the sound engineer.She studied Literature and Philosophy at the University of Padua in Italy from where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and with an honorary distinction in 1983, supporting a doctoral thesis on indirect free speech in the works of Alexandros Papadiamantis.