The captivity of a boy, his conversion to another religion, and his career in administration were not uncommon phenomena in the Ottoman Empire. The case of Ismail Ferik Pasha was, perhaps, different. Half a century after his captivity, he returned to his birthplace, Crete, as the leader of the Egyptian army, to suppress the revolution of 1866-1868. During it, however, he was murdered or killed. His brother, with whom he had been captured together but whose fate took a different path, was financing and encouraging the same revolution from Athens. As is the case with figures who move on the fringes of history, the gap in written information is filled by oral variations and myth, leaving all the necessary cracks for the entry of literature. The work closely follows the variations, the myth, and the specific historical events, thus composing, with the "strict freedom" of art, from the dramatic real life of Ismail Ferik Pasha its fictional dimension. [Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]