HELLO AND GOOD-BYE, FERDINAND DE LESSEPS . . . IT’S BEEN NICE KNOWING YOU

About the Book

“HELLO AND GOODBY EFERDINAND DE LESSEPS IT’S BEING NICE KNOWING YOU” A short story By Alexander Gogonelis A Query Letter The time: The Fifties. The most turbulent decade in the history of modern Egypt. A corrupt king, an inept government, the inability to prevent the formation of the State of Israel, the ever presence of the British Military Forces in the Suez Canal Zone were all perfect ingredients for revolt. Our story unfolds during that period. Taking advantage of the Montreux convention that gave foreigners preferential legal rights, two hundred thousand Greek expatriates lived and worked in Egypt. Some of them amassed wealth of mythical proportions. A Greek, sole heir to one of the biggest and richest fortunes in Cairo, is caught between a sizzling love affair with an Egyptian belly dancer and a woman of his own race whom he intended to marry. Being forced to choose between sin and righteousness brought him in direct conflict with the Holy Sacraments of his Christian faith. The 1952 riots that left Cairo burning provided the background to a most unpredictable ending.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alec Sandros. I was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1929 where I lived uninterruptedly for twenty years. Defending my Hellenic Nationality has always been a problem. Since I was born and raised in Egypt I had to be an Egyptian. The prevailing law of the land at that time nationality wasn’t automatically awarded by place of birth, but by affiliation. If your parents’ Nationality was not Egyptian, you were not Egyptian. I guess the Montreux Convention that gave foreign subjects certain legal priorities must have included this provision in its judicial code. Now I live and work in Memphis, Tennessee where I practice as CPA since 1979. Since I have an avocation writing fiction, why short stories and not a novel. Why take 400 pages when you can say it in less than 90 pages, sometimes in less than 900 words. My literary idol has always been the French author, Albert Camus. His short stories and novellas were and will always be masterpieces for years to come. One has to read them many times over to get the meaning, even then, would be the wrong one. What is the core theme of my writings? Death and preponderance of sin. Life, death and transfiguration constitute one’s trajectory of existence. Comedy, drama, almost invariably tragedy touches our everyday life as we struggle to avert the indelible right of death and the basic instinct of sin, the serpent and the forbidden apple in all of us. Ranging from 850 words to 13,000 words, each short story has its own way of examining how the protagonists handle these issues. My writing is simple, maybe too simple. I have always maintained why use a whole page to describe a sunset when you can do it in one sentence. We all have a common Fate; it is the Future we cannot predict.