MICHAELIDES, TEFCROS


MICHAELIDES, TEFCROS

Tefcros Michaelides, a Cyprus native, lives in Athens, Greece. He has studied in Paris, France and holds a PhD in Mathematics from Pierre et Marie Curie University.

He has published original work on the interaction between mathematics and literature from antiquity to the modern era, on the role of history of science in teaching mathematics and on various aspects of mathematical pedagogy. He has collaborated with various newspapers and magazines publishing articles of science popularization. He has written six novels, a collection of short stories and three books of mathematics popularization. Moreover, he has participated with short stories and essays in various collective volumes. He has translated 49 books from English and French into Greek.

In 2012 he hosted ERT’s (the national TV network) “Around the world in 80 books” a show about books, intended to the young public.
The scenario of “Eteros Ego”, a film by Sotiris Tsafoulias was based on his short story “A Case of Self – Redress”.

He is a member of The Hellenic Authors Society and The Cyprus Writers Union. He is a founding member of the Greek Club of Crime Writers (ELSAL) and of the Thales+Friends group.

 More about author: 
First name:  TEFCROS
Last name:  MICHAELIDES
Projects: 

Polis editions

Mathimatika Epikera - A Mathematician's View of Everyday Events (essays)
Pythagorean Crimes (novel), translated in English, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, French.
Ahmes, Son of the Moon, (novel) ,1st prize of literature of the Republic of Cyprus
The Four Colors of Summer (novel)
Symmetry and the Expatriate (novel)
Crimes of Financial Adjustment (collection of short stories)
Spherical Mirrors Plane Murders (novel)
Murder in the Great Church (novel)

Patakis Editions
Talking to Anna about Math (math popularization)
Talking to Athena about Chaos, Fractals and Complexity (math popularization)


Address: 

Agiou Georgiou 6, 15123 Maroussi


Date of birth:  1954
Birth place:  Αθήνα
Abstract title:  Ahmes, Son of the Moon
Abstract text: 

He was awakened by a non-descript sound, as if somebody was crying. Pianki sat up and rolled into his blanket. The days of Epifi, the third month of the harvest season, were unbearably hot but its nights were even more unbearably cold and sultry, especially in the countryside, near the banks of the Nile.

He listened for a while. Was it a cat? He doubted it: the sacred animals of Bastet rarely frequented the banks of the river. Their instinct prevented them from hanging around the lairs of the bloodthirsty reptiles of the Nile. The cry was heard again, plaintive, desperate.

No, it was not a cat. By now Pianki was fully awake. He rose and approached the reeds with caution. He had no intention, being the hunter in the morning, to become prey at night. He tried in vain to distinguish something in the darkness. It was a night of the full moon but – strange and unusual for the generally cloudless sky of Egypt – the moon was hiding behind the clouds.
He heard the cry for a third time. At the same moment the moon emerged in all its glory, bathing the bank in its silver light and revealing, among the papyrus plants, a small white package which seemed to be the source of the cries. Trapped between two reeds was basket woven of papyrus fiber. And inside the basket, wrapped in tiny piece of white linen was… a baby. Pianki was startled. A newborn traveling down the Nile in a papyrus basket was not so unusual in those times: mistresses and maids often resorted to this method to get rid of the unwanted fruit of their love affairs. However, as a rule, crocodiles used to undertake the task of making evidence disappear. How did this one manage to escape?
The baby resumed crying. Pianki took it in his arms. Immediately he felt a strong,
unprecedented joy. A vast wave of tenderness flooded his heart. This tiny little thing was the child he longed for all these years. It was the baby Tadinanefer had not managed to give him despite the generous offerings to the temple, despite the pilgrimage to the land of Api, the holy bull of Ptah. Three times had Tadinanefer gone to the great temple at Ineb Hetz to undergo the traditional ritual of fertility. She had slept in the specially designed cells of the temple of Ptah and the next morning she had been driven to the corral of Api. There, according to tradition, a woman who wanted to bear a child stripped naked, showing the holy bull her genitals and seeking his blessing. However, offerings, pilgrimages, rituals, all had been proven to be for naught. Tadinanefer was unable to give Pianki a son. And now Hapi, the androgynous deity of the Nile, had laid this baby at his feet. With his rough fingers he caressed the baby as softly as he could. The crying  immediately stopped. He continued to
stroke its forehead, its cheek, its nose, its mouth with his fingers. Immediately the baby grabbed with its lips Pianki’s finger and started to suck on it greedily. Pianki understood. The baby was hungry. He looked around desperately. How could he feed a newborn? Next to his modest bed were the remnants of his dinner. It wasn’t any choice food but it would help the baby forget its hunger until next morning. The hunt was over and by dawn he would return
to Hatvaret. There he would deliver the baby into the hands of Tadinanefer who would surely know what to do…

Tadinanefer: she who was gifted with Beauty… A creature arising from dream and wonder, yet a solid entity. A delicate body and big lively eyes showing alternatively determination and demur. They had met three years ago. He was returning from a hunt, his boat being loaded with game: ibis, ducks, quails, woodcocks. Old pharaoh Seoujerne Hayan had been bedridden for the last few months and all the power lied in the hands of Yanasi, his unworthy son, who spent his time organizing one feast after another. In the middle of such a feast he was found by his soldiers, completely inebriated and they, unwilling to bear any more of his debaucheries, decided to deposit him and offer the throne to Apepi, the ambitious army general. Meanwhile however, the pharaoh’s hunters were always busy, trying to collect the finest game for Yanasi’s royal banquets.
Tadinanefer, then an adolescent of fifteen summers, had gone with her friends to the riverside. They were playing their usual game: two girls mounted on the backs of the other two. The “riders” threw each other a rag ball, while the “donkeys” tried with to prevent them from catching it with their movement. When a girl failed to catch the ball, the roles changed and she became the “donkey”.
While Pianki was pulling his boat ashore, Tadinanefer threw the ball. Her friend missed the catch and the ball landed on the hunter’s head, who was taken by surprise. The girls were scared and ran to hide behind the reeds. Only Tadinanefer walked bravely to the boat and stood smiling before Pianki. He looked back at her with a smile, which he tried to twist into a smirk, in order to hide his admiration. The girl reached for the ball. Pianki managed to grab it first. Tadinanefer extended her arms asking him silently for the ball. He hid it behind his back and looked at her, challenging her with his eyes. Bravely, she looked back at him. For a long time did they stay like this, silently staring at each other. Pianki was the first to recover his senses. He gave the ball back to the girl, who in turn reached out mechanically and took it.
Then he quickly loaded his stuff on a small hand-driven cart and left without uttering a single word.
Tadinanefer did not move. She stayed there, mesmerized, looking alternatively at her hands, the ball and Pianki’s empty boat. As soon as the young hunter left, Tadinanefer’s friends came out from their hiding place and ran up to her, shouting and laughing. However, the long-lasting silence and the glazed eyes of their friend made them understand. Sahmet, her best friend was the first to start, half serious-half teasing, to sing the words of the old love song:
Does he know how much I long to hold him to my breast
How much I want him to send word to mother

Tadinanefer stood there silently, listening to their songs and teases, having turned red out of embarrassment. Sahmet put an arm around her shoulders; the other girls took her hands. It was the first time that these popular lyrics had a concrete meaning for one of them, referred to an existing person. Things rarely happen as told in songs, but this time they did.
As soon as Pianki delivered his game to the palace, he went out to seek information about the girl he had met by the riverside. The news were rather alarming. Tadinanefer was the daughter of lord Ka’aper, member of one of the oldest Egyptian families of Hatvaret. His clan went back to the commander of the first garrison of the city, built about six hundred years ago to protect the eastern borders of Egypt. Ka’aper himself was head scribe of the palace and inspector of the state’s scribes, a position which was only next to that of the prime minister and the commander in chief of the pharaoh’s army. Pianki, on the other hand, was Aamou, descended from a family of Asian origin who had come to Egypt with the Hekau Kassout. The relations of the Egyptians with the people of Near East were peaceful, most of the time. People from Palestine and Syria came very often
to Egypt, either to work or to settle permanently. About 80 years ago, when weak pharaohs ascended to the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt, the country was fragmented. The power in Hatvaret was seized by rulers from Asia who pronounced themselves pharaohs. The coexistence of native Egyptians and colonists was generally harmonious and mixed marriages were common. However, several aristocratic families, although serving the new pharaohs, looked down on the Aamou and avoided social and family relations with them.
It was therefore rather improbable that the arrogant Ka’aper – who was especially proud of the Egyptian purity of his family – would consent to the marriage of his daughter to an Aamou. It took Pianki six months in order to bend the objections of old Ka’aper· finally, he managed to convince him. Of course, the girl’s role had also been vital, since the crabbed head scribe had a near-pathological weakness to his first-born daughter and could not easily say no to her. On the other hand, Pianki might well be socially inferior to his father-in-law, but financially he was superior, since his position as royal hunter provided him with a steady and rich income. Hence, during the first days of Prozee, the planting season, Pianki summoned the builders to construct his new house. His parents had left him a small house in a huge garden, surrounded by palm trees. Pianki asked the builders to construct a big basin in the middle of the garden, a basin that would be filled every day with river water. The central part of the garden was covered with reeds. The family would spend there most of their day.
Tadinanefer would sit there with her neighbors, watching the children playing. Dinner would be served there in the evening, when the weather would be cooler. During the night, Pianki would receive there his friends. They would sit around the basin drinking beer and telling stories. Pianki ordered the construction of two more big rooms in the house. The walls were made of clay bricks dried baked under the sun. The roof was made out of papyrus and bulrush.
The first to enter the new house was Bes, the ugly god – a guardian deity with a terrifying face, who got drunk and spent the night dancing and playing with his drum in order to scare away the evil spirits. A big wooden statue of Bes, carved by Tadinanefer’s uncle, the most famous woodcarver in Hatvaret, was placed in the middle of the main room. For three days Bes was left alone in the house to dance and drive away the evil eye. Only a servant entered the house every morning to fill his jug with sweet wine from Cyprus and his plate with food.
After three days had passed, the newlyweds were led into their new house, followed by friends and relatives. I look at her and it makes me soar
She opens her eyes and my body roars
She speaks and I feel strong
I embrace her and sickness is driven away
That’s how an old lovers’ song goes and that’s how Pianki and Tadinanefer felt. Young, madly in love with each other, financially independent and free from the burdens of a made-up marriage, arranged by the parents without the couple’s consent, they enjoyed their lives, thankful for their gifts. A child was the only thing missing to make their happiness complete.
A baby…
The baby’s cry brought Pianki back to the present. He dipped his finger in the sauce left at the bottom of his bowl and brought it to the baby’s mouth who started to suck on it greedily. He repeated the same process nine or ten times, until the baby was hungry no more. The pharaoh’s hunter put it back in its basket, covered it thoroughly in his blanket and placed it next to him. A few minutes later the baby was asleep. Pianki lied on his back and stayed there, watching the stars until dawn.


Awards: 

Το 2006 French Government awarded him the title of  Chevalier dans l’ Ordre des Palmes Académiques.       


E-mail:  mtefcros@gmail.com
Website:  https://tefcrosmichaelides.wordpress.com/