Vassilis Alexakis (Greek: Βασίλης Αλεξάκης; 25 December 1943 – 11 January 2021) was a Greek-French writer and self-translator of numerous novels in Greek, his mother tongue, and French.

In his literary work he continued to draw from both Greek and French culture. In 1974 he published his first book Le Sandwich, written in French. The first book directly written in Greek was Talgo, published in 1981. By writing Talgo and later on La langue maternelle directly in Greek, he wanted to prove to himself that he was still able to write in his mother tongue. He self-translated Talgo into French and since then he wrote each book in French and Greek. In darkly humorous prose, he combined autobiography, history, fantasy, and suspense. In 2006, Les mots étrangers was translated by Alyson Waters and published under the title Foreign Words; this was the first of his novels to be translated into English. In 1995, he received the prestigious Prix Médicis for La langue maternelle. In 2007, he received the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française for Ap. J.-C.

He died on 11 January 2021 after a long battle with cancer.

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