Product Description
When Ellis Douek was nine, his mother insisted that he take up embroidery, in case he became a surgeon when he grew up. Of course she was right, for he became Consultant ENT Surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London. The Douek parents had the unerring quality of belonging in whichever country they lived - Egypt, the Sudan, Columbia and, finally, England. Ellis Douek's memoirs describe the hedonism of life in Egypt, the Suez Crisis which uprooted them, 1950s Bradford, and Paris. He began his medical training in Paris where he, his sister Claudia (Claudia Roden, the cookery writer), and brother Zaki lived free of adult supervision. His training continued in London during a time of smog, digs and landladies. Ellis's days as an army medic provide hilarious accounts of whisky-sodden soldiers, circumcisions and bureaucratic procedures.
From the Publisher
Ellis Douek describes this work as strands of memory. These strands weave between remembrance of dawn across the Nile and the silence of the feloukas, summers by the sea in Alexandria and the seeming security and hedonism of it all, between Nasser and the Suez War which disrupted their lives and uprooted the family, and 1950s Bradford – an austere place after the prosperity and warmth of Egypt – where Ellis finished his schooling.
About the Author
Born in Cairo in the '30s, Ellis Douek left Egypt to finish his studies in Paris and London, during which time the Suez War broke out and the family was forced to leave forever. He eventually became a famous ENT surgeon at Guy's hospital in London.
