Tsawwassen’s Peter Vassilopoulos took a step back to his home country for his debut novel.
He’s written Turn of the Tide, an adventure tale about a plan to free political prisoner Nelson Mandela in the 1960s.
Vassilopoulos, who hails from Cape Town, says he had the idea for the novel ever since Mandela was put in prison.
The author worked as a news editor at a radio station at the time and could see Robben Island, where Mandela was held, from his office window.
“I walked along the beachfront one day,” he says, “and I looked out at the island, [and wondered] what it would take to get that guy out of jail?”
Mandela spent nearly 30 years in prison before eventually becoming the first black president of South Africa. He shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa,” the prize’s website notes.
Vassilopoulos deals with apartheid-era politics in the novel.
“It’s a part of the story,” he says, noting he gives the reader an idea of what it was like there at the time.
The novel includes action in and around the water, including diving.
Vassilopoulos came to Canada in 1973 becoming a freelance writer for Pacific Yachting Magazine. He founded DIVER Magazine and also has a series of boating cruising guides to his credit.
He will be selling copies of Turn of the Tide at the Vancouver International Boat Show, which runs until Sunday.
After that he says the novel will be available at book stores, including Albany Books and Black Bond Books, marine stores and online.
