Maktoub (25/II/2012) - Tapa blanda

Maktoub describes the events and political upheavals that changed the Middle East from the demise of the Ottoman Empire to the eventual death of Colonel Nasser. These events are seen through the eyes of Peter Angelakis, an Ottoman Greek who left Constantinople for a more secure existence in British controlled Egypt. In Alexandria, Peter marries into a Lebanese family and the history of that period with all its upheavals unfolds through the lives of his four children. The Second World War provided Peter’s eldest daughter who is married to a British Officer, offers a peek into English reactions to Egyptian Nationalism. It also acted as a catalyst to the free Officer’s movement resulted in King Farouk’s abdication. Peter’s second daughter Alexandra marries a Greek businessman who escaped from communist Romania, and throws light into the socialist nationalizations that eventually wrecked the Egyptian economy. Peter’s two sons with his father-in-law are immersed in the Egyptian interior and provide a picture of life at the time that included acquiring business contacts; the reasons and results of the burning of Cairo; the Suez attack and the disastrous six day war of 1967 until the death of Nasser in 1970. All the events, once they had occurred, the Muslim population stoically accepted them. To them it was MAKTOUB (it is written).

Nestor Pierrakos was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1934 of Greek parents. He was privileged in every way a Greek family could possibly dote on their one and only heir. He had an English education, starting at Victoria College Alexandria, followed by Trinity Hall Cambridge to read Economics, then a post graduate MBA at Harvard Business School, with two semesters in between, at Heidelberg University to learn German, which gave him one more language to add to his Greek, English, French, Arabic and Italian. He worked in the family wine making in Egypt until it was nationalized, then moved to Kenya and worked on a coffee plantation, and later started his own winery in Libya until the 1970 revolution. Finally moving to Greece and turning to shipping. He married twice and has two children from each marriage. Presently he is an insurance broker and has just completed his first book.