Thrice a Stranger: Penelope’s Eastern Mediterranean Odyssey

A Greek grandfather born a citizen of the Ottoman Empire who became an Italian national provides the starting point for this book, which, by focusing on the real story of a family against a background of historical events, shows how what the author calls the ‘minotaurs of fear and greed’ can be overcome and the pseudo-theories of many a pundit of so-called international relations can be demolished. It is not every day that the son of a Cumbrian who fought in the Great War meets the daughter of his Ottoman enemy, following the next war, and then marries her. The author’s grandfathers were on opposing sides in the Great War, one with the British at Gallipoli, the other in the Ottoman Army; in the next war, his father and uncle were on opposing sides to his aunt’s husband. His aunt was thrice a refugee, from Ottoman Turkey, Italian Rhodes, and then again from modern Turkey. This forms the rich backcloth to this historical account of the family vicissitudes engendered by the behaviour of Greece’s controversial Eleftherios Venizelos and Turkey’s bombastic Kemal Ataturk. Written and spoken accounts by family members and diplomatic documents are skilfully woven into a rich tapestry of that geohistorical toilet, the Eastern Mediterranean. The book brings to life some vital aspects of modern European history, ending with a trenchant critique of Greece and Turkey today, warts and all.