A presentation about the Book “ The life of Ismail Ferik Pasha” A novel by Greek writer Rea Galanaki, »The life of Ismail Ferik Pasha« has been released in Arabic by Al Ahram Foundation, in an initiative funded by the Alexandria branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (HFC).
The novel was translated into Arabic by Prof. Mohammad Hamdi Ibrahim of the Cairo School of Philosophy, a well-known scholar of Greek literature, translator and winner of the Egypt's National Prize as well as of the Cavafy award.
The novel relates the true story (http://www.griechische-kultur.de/Autoren_Neuerscheinungen/Galanaki/Galanaki.htm) of two Greek siblings who were captured in their village on the Crete Islands by the Ottoman army and taken to Egypt. One of them, Antonis, financed the national revolution on Crete, while the other one, Emmanouil, grew up to become a Moslem official that was later sent back to Crete to suppress the 1866-1868 rebellion on the island. Since it first came out in 1989, »The Life of Ismail Ferik Pasha« has been reprinted several times in Greek and was translated to French, English, Turkish, Bulgarian, Dutch and German.
It was the first Greek novel to be included in UNESCO's »Collection of Representative Works« which lists books that reflect the organization's ideals.