Petros Markaris

Pétros Márkaris (Greek: Πέτρος Μάρκαρης; born 1 January 1937 in Istanbul) is a Greek writer of detective novels starring the grumpy Athenian police investigator Costas Haritos. The son of an Armenian entrepreneur and a Greek mother, he was born as Bedros Markarian in Istanbul. He attended the St. George's Austrian High School in Istanbul and studied economics after his Abitur for some years in Vienna and in Stuttgart. The family moved to Athens in 1954, but Markaris did not settle permanently there until 1964. That year over 15,000 Greeks (Greek passport holders) were expelled from Istanbul and their properties were confiscated, a major blow for the city's millenarian Greek community. Because of his father, he belonged to the Armenian minority for many years and did not have any citizenship; he became a Greek citizen shortly after 1974, together with the rest of the Armenian minority in Greece. Markaris speaks and writes in Greek, Turkish and German. Today he lives in Athens.