Rita Kolaiti was born in Patras. She studied Economics in Athens, Film History in London, and Literary History in Paris and Brussels and she holds a Honorary Doctorate from the Department of Foreign Languages, Translation and Interpreting, Ionian University.  She has worked as a translator for the European Commission (Brussels) as well as for public sector bodies. She has translated numerous books spanning literature, essays, children's and young adult literature, and cinema studies, among others.

For her translation work, she has received several prestigious awards:

• State Literary Translation Award for the Translation of a Work of Foreign Literature into Greek (2020) for Against Nature (À rebours) by J.-K. Huysmans (Stereoma Publishing).
• EKEMEL Award for the Translation of Francophone Literature (2010) for Marseille la Rouge by Maurice Attia (Polis Publishing).
• Children’s Book Translation Award of the Hellenic Society of Literary Translators (2013) for Toby Lolness: The Tree of the Moon (Tobi Lolness: La forêt des yeux) by Timothée de Fombelle (Synchroni Orizontes Publishing).