Hotel Tiberias: A Tale of Two Grandfathers

Description

Part history, part travel journal and part autobiography, Hotel Tiberias is a journey of many layers and resonances, as Sebastian Hope follows the tumultuous story of his family's hotel in Palestine. 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 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 tumultuous history of the area, Hope digs deep into the history and layers of his own family, and discovers how family histories have an archaeology too.

Sebastian Hope was born in a military hospital in 1964. He has travelled extensively, and his articles and photographs have appeared in the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, High Life and Conde Nast Traveller. His first book, Outcasts of the Islands, was published in 2001 and is an account of his time spent with sea gypsies in South-East Asia. He is married with two sons and lives in London.

Praise for Hotel Tiberias: 'Moving, intelligent, highly readable and occasionally extremely funny, this is a fine book indeed.' Geographical Magazine 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