HIDDEN MOSAICS
Book Talk With Alexander Billinis
Sunday, July 9, 2017 from 3:00 – 5:00 pm
“The mosaic is, in my opinion, the most beautiful way to depict a picture, far truer than flat primary colors that obscure the truth. In the mosaic, the whole is clearly a product of the parts.” Alex Billinis
Beneath the primary colors of the Greek and Turkish national flags, a mosaic lies beneath. Histories, cultures, and geographies mingle. Billinis’ book, his first novel, draws on his own family history to tell a story of Greece and Turkey over the past two hundred years. While key events are covered in the book, more often the history is the unofficial history of Greeks, Turks, and other Balkan peoples, whose lives intersect, though their histories, officially, do not.
“The Mosaic is, in my opinion, the most beautiful way to depict a picture, far truer than flat primary colors that obscure the truth. In the mosaic, the whole is clearly a product of the parts.” Alex Billinis
Alexander Billinis earned his undergraduate degree in Western and Eastern European Studies at Georgetown University in 1991. He later earned advanced degrees in international management and law. His career has included international banking, commercial real estate, law, and journalism. An author of two books, “The Eagle has Two Faces: Journeys through Byzantine Europe” and “Hidden Mosaics: An Aegean Tale,” Billinis lived and worked in Chile, Greece, Bulgaria, the UK, and Serbia. He writes and lectures widely on business, historical and political topics. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two children.
