Lives Between The Lines

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.

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
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
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

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