Lives Between The Lines, Michael Vatikiotis
Lives Between The Lines, Michael Vatikiotis
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Lives Between The Lines
A Journey in Search of the Lost Levant

Author: Michael Vatikiotis

Narrator: Michael Vatikiotis

Unabridged: 10 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/05/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

In Lives Between the Lines, Michael Vatikiotis traces the journey of his Greek and Italian forebears from Tuscany, Crete, Hydra and Rhodes, as they made their way to Egypt and the coast of Palestine in search of opportunity. In the process, he reveals a period where the Middle East was a place of ethnic and cultural harmony - where Arabs and Jews rubbed shoulders in bazaars and teashops, intermarried and shared family history.

While lines were eventually drawn and people, including Vatikiotis's family, found themselves caught between clashing faiths, contested identities and violent conflict, this intimate and sweeping memoir is a paean to tolerance, offering a nuanced understanding of the lost Levant.

About Michael Vatikiotis

Michael Vatikiotis is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and gained his doctorate from the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Asia Society's International Council and has a decade of experience working as a private diplomat and conflict mediator for the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Prior to that he worked as a journalist in Asia for thirty years, living in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong. He is the author of two previous books on the politics of Southeast Asia and is based in Singapore.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Bagus on June 25, 2024

This memoir evoked in me similar feelings to those I experienced while reading Homo Irrealis: Essays by André Aciman. Both authors explore themes of displacement and identity, drawing from their Levantine backgrounds. Their families had to leave the places they called home for several decades (or ev......more

Goodreads review by Dana on June 22, 2024

This is a beautifully written and incisive book, rich with historical detail and insight into a culture that the author knows well. Vatikiotis skilfully deconstructs the history of the Levant through the centuries to reconstruct the lives of his ancestors at a time when lines and borders were fluid,......more

Goodreads review by Ted on October 20, 2022

An eyeopening alternative view of the Levant/Israel/Palestine indeed. Though somewhat repetitive in its nostalgic re-statement time and again of the sad loss of the valuable cosmopolitanism that existed in the Levant, as a committed lifelong Zionist Jew, I derived a lot of benefit also from the auth......more

Goodreads review by Christopher on June 16, 2023

This is a stunning book, written by one of the great BBC journalists who spent three decades covering Southeast Asia. His family however were Europeans who immigrated to the Levante on the last centuries. This poignant, personal, researched book tells the stories through the eyes of his family. And......more

Goodreads review by Mike on February 24, 2022

'Lives Between the Lives' is a stunning read, which has taken me many months because every page, every paragraph, every sentence, opened new doors on my understanding of the times and how they feed into today on both global and personal levels. This journey has added significance for me for a number......more

Quotes

Lives Between the Lines is the moving and beautifully written story of a journey to explore [Vatikiotis's] identity by visiting the places - primarily Egypt and Israel - in which several generations of his Levantine ancestors made their homes. As well as being a highly personal family-memoir-cum-travelogue, it is a paean to tolerance between diverse faiths and different communities at a time when much of the Middle East is being consumed by bigotry, fanaticism and sectarian violence FINANCIAL TIMES

Vatikiotis's pen portraits left me wanting more of this amazing cast of characters. For the family are bit-part players in what is in fact a potted history of the late Levant, living proofs in his view of the Ottoman Empire's enlightened approach to minority cultures . . . Vatikiotis's final two chapters describe and acknowledge the ambiguities consequent on Britain's eventual imperial retreat and the region's expulsions of foreigners - British, Jewish, Greek, Italian alike. They are easily the finest and worth the cover price alone . . . fascinating THE TIMES

Vatikiotis is quietly opinionated, a quality which makes him an admirable guide for this evocation of an era - a journey of personal discovery, where, despite complexities, everything stands neatly in historical and topographical context SPECTATOR

[A] human and fascinating insider view of Levantine families in the mid-twentieth century TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

A brilliant evocation of an era when the Middle East was a haven of peace and prosperity for people fleeing Europe. Lives Between the Lines interweaves a fascinating family history with a portrait of a lost world - which has many echoes and lessons for today

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