An Unusual Life

This unique book follows the life of its author, son of a Greek-Venetian father and Anglo-Greek mother, from his upbringing in an intensely active political environment to his travels in the many countries of three Continents in which he worked. It reflects on his manifold experiences as a barrister, a scholar, a public lecturer and as the advisor of some eminent people, while at the same time laying bare his innermost self.

His views on many of the most troubling issues of our times are at once frankly expressed yet restrained in tone, as he strives to understand the individuals whose portraits he paints and how in turn they influenced his character. Adopting the view of the ancient Greek tragedians, for whom ‘nothing [is] more wondrous than man’, he leaves it to the readers to make their own judgement about them by presenting to them their relevant facts accompanied by the warning that the complexity of humans must be understood before it is judged and then always with compassion. A work of intuition, rare breadth, but also lightly written, it is accompanied here by fifty (mostly coloured) photographs from the author’s own archives with the majority of them published for the first time.