Hotel Tiberias: A Tale of Two Grandfathers [Lingua Inglese] - Rilegato

Hope, Sebastian

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0007130201 ISBN 13: 9780007130207

Casa editrice: HarperCollins, 2004

Riassunto

Part history, part travel and part autobiography, Hotel Tiberias is a journey of many layers and resonances, in which the author explores and unravels his own family history against the backdrop of history and events on the international stage.

In 1900,Thomas Cook, who had been running tours of the Holy Land since the 1890s, financed the building of a hotel in Tiberias, the largest town on the Sea of Galilee, which had long been a stopover point for Christian pilgrims. The hotel, built, run and eventually owned by Richard Grossmann, was situated in the Sanjak of Acre, part of the Ottoman Empire, and after the First World War found itself in the British mandated territory of Palestine, prospering under British rule before until the Second World War, after which the hotel was eventually confiscated by the fledgling state of Israel in 1948.

With the hotel as the pivotal point in the story, Sebastian Hope researches the story of his grandmother, Margaret Frena and her two husbands, Fritz Grossman (Richard Grossman's son), who shot himself dead in 1938, the year Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland, and John Winthrop Hackett (General Sir John Hackett) who served with the TransJordan Frontier Force.

Journeying through Rhineland Germany, Turkey and the Middle East, his research takes him to some strange places as he weaves a wonderful, strong family story into a rich, sweeping backdrop of both time and place. Just as he unravels the history of the area with its shifting scenery of wars, religion and struggles for power, Hope unravels the history and layers of his family, and discovers how family histories have an archaeology too – peeling away the layers can be a painful process, which can not only undermine the foundations of present-day structures, but can also unearth skeletons.

Su questo libro

Recensione:

Praise for Outcasts of the Islands:

‘What makes this account rise above so many others is the author's painful self-awareness ... every step he takes is examined not only for its ethnological interest, but its ethical standpoint ... We can't help but like this young author. Outcasts of the Islands rises above the oceans of books by eager British men having adventures in far-flung places by being about a subject – the sea gypsies – that only wilful ignorance of the world would make unappealing. Hope has us on his side from the start. And then he gently questions his endeavours, taking us on a second tortuous journey of justifying the very existence of travel writing. This second voyage is far more risky than the first ... but without it, his book would certainly be less of an adventure.' Dea Birkett, Sunday Times

L'autore:

Sebastian Hope was born in 1964 and had lived in five different homes by the age of seven. In 1986, after gaining a degree in English Literature from Bristol University, he set off for Pakistan. Arriving on the Caribbean coast of Mexico two years later he decided on the toss of a coin to pursue a career in writing and photography. His travel stories and photographs have appeared in the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph, Highlife and both Traveller magazines, among others.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: HarperCollins
• Data di pubblicazione: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0007130201
• ISBN 13: 9780007130207
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 320