"The Prince of Ylliriel speaks..."

Erik Zakhia created a new blog called "The Prince of Ylliriel speaks..." that you can visit on the following link: https://theprinceofylliriel.blogspot.com/ 

Erik will on this new platform post regular videos of him showing and presenting the garden he himself plants, explaining how he intuitively adopted principles of permaculture and agroforestry in order to have a fruitful and unique garden, that is also entirely natural and environmentally friendly. In the short, spontanous, non-professional videos Erik posts, he will also draw links between gardening, writing and his personal vision of life. 

Agroforestry ecosystem

In parallel with writing, Erik Zakhia has always been passioned with planting, gardening and ecosystems, landscape shaping, and building things with his own hands.

It is in August 2020, when Erik settled in Amchit, his hometown, that he had the opportunity to reconnect on a daily basis with the garden he had started planting in 2006.

In August 2020, the "Fantasy Garden of Ylliriel", name Erik gave to the garden belonging to his parents, counted more than a hundred trees: fruit trees, but also flowering trees, and other trees that just provide the garden with shade, and timber. Many of these trees had been planted by Erik when he still went to school, a little more than a decade before.

Therefore in August 2020, the garden produced a variety of fruits, but no vegetables or salads. Erik decided to self-learn how to cultivate all the vegetable plants that he could never cultivate in the past as they require daily care and watering, and a constant presence. However instead of cutting trees as people usually do, to provide vegetables with the high amounts of sunlight they need, Erik decided to find a way to cultivate vegetables in between trees, according to agroforesty and permaculture principles.

A long research and quest started. Erik daily dedicated in between 4 and 8 hours of work to the garden, including on weekends and holidays. For some months, Erik decreased his writing output, to focus on the garden, which he suspected could become a crucial element in the novels he would co-write.

Erik conducted all sorts of experiments in the garden, and in the time lapse of one year, he found creative ways to cultivate many varieties of vegetables, salads, and fruit plants, that drastically increased the total yield of the garden. You can read more about all these experiments on https://yllirielfantasywriter.wordpress.com/

The specialty of Erik, that allowed him to cultivate large and small vegetables and fruits with success in between tall trees was among others, a raised bed of his own invention, burying dry and green leaves that abund underneath trees, with kitchen wastes, and ashes, in between large stones, covered by a thin layer of soil. Also, Erik never makes use of any chemical or biological product in his garden; combining many types of plants allows to decrease ailments, and if one year certain types of plants do not yield well because of climatic conditions, they are compensated by other plants which growth is on the contrary favored by these climatic conditions.

In the picture below, Erik poses with one of the large organic pumpkin he cultivated in a raised bed of his invention.

Erik, however, did not limit himself to planting. He built stone paths in the entire garden, thus dividing the garden in sections. He also learnt everything he could about wild plants, and wild edible plants, favoring those, in order to diversify the garden's production. There are wild edible plants that are delicious, and which are not found in supermarkets because their leaves rapidly wither when they are cut; however when a salad is freshly picked, that problem is resolved.

Erik also tackled water management issues in a creative way, increasing the capacity of the garden to store water by around 5000 liters. He did so by building with his own hands small dams on a canal that crossed the garden, transforming that canal into several series of ponds. He built several other ponds across the garden, and he also found the way to collect rain water in a tank. In that way, whenever during the driest weeks of the summer the watering needs become very important, Erik can use those extra water reservoirs in order to irrigate the most sensitive plants that wouldn't otherwise outlive the summer.

The most ambitious project in terms of engineering Erik undertook is the construction of a stairway in a "medieval" style, making it hold with the weight of the stones. There was an old building inside the garden, the barnhouse, which rooftop is at 4,5 to 5 meters height - entirely inaccessible, except with a ladder. Erik decided to build those stairs on his own, with his own hands, without using any mechanical means. He solely used materials he could find inside the garden, large rocks and stones, old piles of rubbles, old sacks of concrete, and he also collected some stones he could find on the beaches along the sea nearby his family house. Erik worked on building the stairway to the rooftop of the barnhouse from April 2021 to September 2021. It took him six months to build the 12 steps that would allow to access easily and in a safe and comfortable enough way the rooftop of the barnhouse. The estimated total weight of the stairs is of 10 tons, and Erik only used 150 kilograms of concrete, solely to cover the top of each step. Almost three years afterwards, the stairs is still as safe and comfortable as it first was, meaning that Erik's project was successful, despite being very daring. Underneath you can see the plan of the stairway Erik drew. The main challenges of the stairway's construction were: the weight of stones and finding ways to make them roll to get them up the stairs; determining the architecture and shape of the right stones to use at each stage in order to make the stairs hold; the construction of superelevated reinforcements all around the stairs to make them resistant to time and flooding rains.

Erik also built and restored various objects in the garden, including old wooden tables, etc. Moreover, Erik worked on researching the "perfect" raised beds' architecture, in order to guarantee the solidity of the raised bed, and the best growth of plants.

Underneath you will find a series of seven short, informal, spontaneous, non-professional videos where Erik briefly shows and discuss the Fantasy Garden of Ylliriel and the stairway he built. In future, these videos will be recorded again in a more professional way, once the garden is in its final shape, in order to encourage other persons to start taking care personally, and with passion and creativity, of their own garden, and showing them that even in tight and constrained spaces, and even underneath trees, it is possible to plant a thriving vegetable garden.

Planting, gardening and seeds keeping is one of the causes Erik plans to advocate for in the historical-fantasy novels he is co-writing together with Annelies Broeders. Indeed, human beings have mostly forsaken their roots, forgettting that plants are at the basis of life. Agricultural exploitations right now are huge, and most of people buy everything they consume, having lost the ancient knowledge and patience of how to plant. Industrial agriculture has negative consequences for the Earth and for the health of human beings. And human beings are too busy with their time consuming jobs, and digital life after their studies and work, to ever get interested in plants. Our bet is that a lot of the problems of humanity could be solved if people, instead of appreciating costly and polluting activities, could fall in love again with plants and planting. Plants have a lot of secret wisdom to teach, and they offer a quality and peaceful life to those who know how to appreciate them and take care of them on a daily basis. Plants are infinitely creative, and form fantasy worlds of themselves.

Writer

Writer of fantasy-historical novels

It is in July-August 2017, Erik Zakhia took the difficult, courageous decision to dedicate most of his time to writing.

He was a skilled engineer, and he successfully worked as a transportation engineer for around two years, but Erik understood that practicing engineering in a firm was not his real passion, and life pursuit.

And in life, sometimes, it is necessary to make hard, courageous choices. Erik understood that he needed time, and freedom, in order to build the fantasy worlds and universes in which his novels would take place. His ambition was to write High Fantasy novels, which is a terminology used to qualify the rare handful of novels where the writer builds an entirely original fantasy worlds, with its own, coherent rules, setting, countries, towns, tongues, etc. High Fantasy novels are supposed to be like a doorway toward other, fictional, imaginary worlds.

What gave the courage to Erik to take this courageous decision to dedicate himself to writing is his encounter with his twin soul, that happened in October 2014, in Lausanne. Annelies Broeders had engaged herself on a similar life path: she studied to become an Architect, while dreaming to become a High Fantasy writer. At the beginning of February 2015, Annelies Broeders and Erik Zakhia started co-writing their first historical-fantasy novel, in parallel with their studies, and internship.

The idea of writing novels together never abandoned them, despite the challenges along that path, as writing a High Fantasy novel recquires a person not only to be a skilled writer, but also to dedicate four, five, six, seven, eight hours per day to writing. Someone working as an engineer or an architect cannot dedicate daily four to eight hours to writing. A writer is supposed to write even on Saturdays and Sundays. There is no weekend, and there can be no pause, while writing a novel. And outside the hours of writing, there must be several hours dedicated to thinking, imagining, pondering, drawing, mapping.

Therefore in order to write a truly successful High Fantasy novel, something that only a few handfuls of writers have successfully managed to do around the world in the last century, a lot of time and mental energy to create and focus is needed.

That is the consideration that pushed Erik to abandon the idea of working as an engineer in a firm, in July 2017. From that moment on, he started working on building and developing the fantasy universes where the novels he and Annelies Broeders planned to co-write would take place.

The aim here is not to disclose the content of the writings project on which Erik and Annelies have been working together since 2017, because, as long as their two first novels are not published and printed, the content and title of their books is confidential. You can however discover a trailer about one of their novels on the following webpage: "A Fantasy-Historical Novel" https://theprinceofylliriel.wordpress.com/

Underneath is a list of the writing projects on which Erik Zakhia and Annelies Broeders have been working together since 2017; the books ready to be published are in bold:

- Hzn* (July 2017 - ongoing): Hzn* is the name of the cosmos in which the high fantasy novels of Annelies and Erik will take place; a lot of time has been dedicated in developing the construction behind Hzn*; around 500 pages of loose texts, descriptions and shorts stories have been written. Hzn* serves as a basis for all their future novels.

- Fln* (May 2018 - December 2023): Fln* is the title of a fantasy-allegorical novel of around 400 pages co-written by Annelies and Erik, in between the months of May and July 2020; its last chapter was however written in December 2023. Other 200 loose pages were written in the universe of Fln*, and might later be used in another novel.

- TGWCL* (May 2023 - ongoing): TGWCL* is the title of the most ambitious fantasy-historical novel Annelies and Erik are co-writing; the first two volumes of TGWCL* are ready to be published, for a total length of around 1500 pages. There will be many other volumes to come.

Annelies Broeders and Erik Zakhia have also been working on other, poetry books, and non-fictional books. In particular they plan to publish a book called "My Twin Soul Journey To Reunion" telling the story of their extraordinary encounter, of the long and unusual path to find one another and to heal of their wounds using writing and art as a therapy, and of how their dreams to become historical-fantasy novelists perfectly intersected. More and more people meet their twin soul around the world, and Annelies and Erik wish to relate their experience, as it could interest and help other persons who are confronted with the beauty, intensity and pain triggered by meeting one's twin soul. Around 1000 pages of loose texts, poems, short stories are written already.

Therefore, in conclusion, Erik and Annelies have co-written around 4000 pages in the last seven years, of which nearly 2000 are ready to be published. Their aim and their dream is to make of TGWCL* a bestseller translated in many languages, and to write many other volumes that follow the first two, within that same high fantasy world, with the same characters, as these characters grow up. 

From July 2017 to March 2019, Erik worked on his writing projects in Lausanne. From April 2019 to August 2020, he was based in Beirut. And since August 2020, Erik is based in Amchit, located in Byblos' countryside (Mount Lebanon Governorate). 

The two pictures below were taken during a holiday in Sardinia, Italy in August 2018, where the ancient, historical landscapes proved inspiring during the worldbuilding phase. 

Transportation Engineering

Work:

- Transitec Ingénieurs Conseil: 2016 - 2017

Erik Zakhia worked as a Transportation Engineer for one year and a half at Transitec Ingénieurs Conseil, based in Lausanne (Switzerland). During his experience at Transitec, Erik worked on a multitude of projects with the title of "ingénieur d'études", in Switzerland and abroad. The projects Erik was entrusted, include, among others:

. A project studying the replanning of the Maladière roundabout in Lausanne as well as the last section of the highway between Lausanne and Geneva, to give a more human and urban face to this entryway of Lausanne. This ambitious project also included an urban planning section (the construction of new housings and workplaces), and a historical reflection about how to save the little Chapel of La Maladière. A particular reflection was also conducted on how to favor the use of public transportation, biking, and walking in the future neighborhood that would be built. (stakeholders: Ville de Lausanne, Etat de Vaud)

. A project studying the replanning of the town center and urban area of Geneva, in order to decrease the space given to cars, and increase the space given to pedestrians, bikers and public transportation. This project included an ambitious development of public transportation (new tramway and bus lines). In order to make present and future projections, Erik conducted an ambitious traffic survey over the entire urban area of Geneva, leading a group of volunteers that collected data during rush hours, in order to be able to determine the matrix of origins and destinations of the drivers who crossed the town, combined with a clever use of cameras and traffic counters. With the data thus obtained, Erik was responsible for drawing the maps of how the traffic would evolve in future years depending on the policies the cantonal government of Geneva would adopt. At the end, after presenting and submitting the different scenarios to the authorities, Erik drew a large-scale map of the entire town of Geneva with the retained scenario of traffic and urban replanning. (stakeholder: Etat de Genève)

. A project studying the construction of a new metro line in Toulouse, France. The name of this new metro line is the Toulouse Aerospace Express. Erik was responsible to work, together with a few other engineers, on the path the metro would follow, and the positioning of its stations. Many different scenarios and alternatives had to be presented to the local and metropolitan authorities, as a new metro line also means a strong urban development all around the newly created stations. The role of an urban/transportation engineer is to predict how the town will evolve along this new, high speed, transportation lane. And, in function of what are the political objectives of future developments, as well as the local constraints (topography, river, airport, stadium, already existing public transportation network, etc.) the positioning of stations is chosen, and the reorganization of existing public transportation lines is determined, to ensure the most comfortable experience for the users. And along the new metro line, the biking lanes would be developed, and the role of Erik was also to study intermodality potentials in different places of the town, in order to design stations accordingly.

. Smaller projects such as studying the traffic impact of the closing of a road in Prilly (Vaud), of the construction of new housings and workplaces in Crissier (Vaud), of the construction of a new, olympic swimming pool in Villars-sur-Glâne (Fribourg), of the replanning of the town center of Saint-Sulpice, etc... All these projects included studies on various levels: urban development, road networks and parking spaces, public transportation reorganization, and the favoring of biking and walking. 

At Transitec Ingénieurs Conseils, Erik Zakhia learnt all the subtleties of being a transportation engineer. He also perfected his skills to draw urban and transportation maps, to conduct large scale calculations related to traffic engineering requiring a high level of rigor and precision, to write clear, well-formulated reports, always containing the analysis of several scenarios, in order to allow the political authorities / or the private clients to broaden their reflection, and to choose the plan that suits them the best. The use of a simple and expressive design, and the capacity to orally present complex ideas and scenarios in a relatively short time, were also skills Erik learnt.

The motto Erik always followed is that of: "the less space is given to cars, the less cars there will be", a concept also known as traffic evaporation. In all the projects he worked on, and in all the plans he drew, he tried to favor as much as he could the use of sustainable transportation (public transportation, biking, walking), and to propose pro-active policies to municipalities and regions, implying to decrease the number of lanes on roads and the number of available parking spaces, in order to encourage and even "force" people not to use their cars (which is the most polluting, and encumbering mode of transportation available). Indeed, compare the pleasure of walking in a town without cars, or with few cars, where the public space is friendly and animated, with the dangers and stressful experience of walking into a town where thousands of cars rush, creating urban fractures, and discouraging people to walk and take their time. The wish of Erik was to try to give towns a more human and friendly face, where large trees give quietness to streets, sheltering birds and biodiversity underneath the buildings where citizens live. Because space is not unlimited, and a decision must be taken: will the space be given to cars, or to pedestrians? To Erik, this choice was clear and obvious. During the time he worked as a Transportation Engineer, Erik tried, in every project he carried on, to encourage and promote this vision.

After almost two years spent working as a Transportation Engineer, Erik Zakhia decided to dedicate himself to his true passion in life, which is writing.

The truth is, Erik was disappointed at the leverage an engineer has, in order to change things, and mindsets. At work, it is always time, money, and political directions that rule. As creative and innovative as an engineer can be, there will always be a wall in front. The final decision does not belong to the engineer, but to the politicians, to the dirigeants, to those who hold large capitals.

Having a lot of ideas and ideals, Erik decided that a writing career would offer him much more freedom in order to touch people more deeply than if he worked as an engineer, limited by too many constraints.

That is why Erik decided to take this courageous decision, and to adventure himself along a path he had to himself draw, and pave. His colleagues regretted him, as Erik was a skilled, precise, creative, efficient engineer, but they also whole-heartedly wished him good luck, expressing the wish to read his novels one day. At the end, each human being has a dream, but only few have the courage and the possibility to follow their dream.

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In the first picture (above), Erik sits on a bench, in a town, observing and pondering upon the transportation flows in an urban context. The role of a good transportation engineer is to understand the dynamics of a town, in order to be able to reshape it. In every town he conducted transportation engineering projects, Erik immerged himself for hours, sitting on a bench and observing pedestrians and bikers, walking through every neighborhood, taking a bike and exploring the most remote neighborhoods. This allowed Erik to draw precise enough maps based not only on statistics and numbers, but also on real life observation. 

In the second picture (below), Erik stands in front of Cinecittà in Rome, hoping that one day his novels will be turned into movies. Because that would mean that Erik has succesfully managed to reach the hearts of people from all around the world. At the time this picture was taken, this vision only was a distant dream, necessitating tens of thousands of hours of hard work before becoming real.

 

Master (MSc) in Engineering

- Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne: 2013 - 2015

Erik Zakhia obtained his Master of Science (MSc) in Energy Management and Sustainability from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in July 2015. He is thus authorized to use the professional title of: Engineer in Energy Management and Sustainable Development.

Erik Zakhia obtained the 2nd Prize for Excellency, with the final average of 5.40/6. In reason of his excellent results, Erik was granted a two-years full scholarship at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne covering all his expenses as a student (university fees, housing, living, insurance, and travels).

Erik Zakhia took a great diversity of courses at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) covering all the spectrum of Sustainable Development, ranging from air pollution, soil ecology, water treatment, renewable energies, urbanism and how to plan the towns of tomorrow, sustainable construction, and energetical policies. Erik decided to specialize on the transportation / urbanism dimension, studying as his first year semestrial project the case study of how Copenhagen (Denmark) managed to promote the use of bicycles at a very large scale, and analyzing the reasons of its success. On his second semester, Erik worked on the case study of Lausanne's agglomeration and its 2030 vision, interviewing dirigeants, mayor, and politicians, in order to confront engineering, sustainability, and politics. As a final year project, Erik worked under the supervision of Professor Vincent Kaufman, on the agglomeration of Sion (Valais Canton), analyzing how to increase the modal share of public transportation, walking and biking, using advanced mapping tools (arcgis...) in order to precisely study the behavior of the inhabitants of the Valais Canton, and relate it with the urban typology of the places where they lived.

Professional experiences

- Internships

-- Alstom Hydro Power (Grenoble, 2012)

Erik Zakhia did his first three-months internship at Alstom Hydro Power in Grenoble (France) in the summer of 2012 in the context of his studies at the American University of Beirut. Erik worked on a complex mathematical method called "The method of singularities" studying the possibility to use it in order to do simulations to enhance the efficiency of turbines. After determining that it was feasible to use "The method of singularities" in order to optimize water turbines, Erik designed a complex system of equations that he coded on C++ in order to make a fully functioning program that would later be used by Alstom Hydro Power, as a faster way to test turbines. Joel Marin, the supervisor of Erik was very pleased with his work saying that "Erik demonstrated high levels of rigor and logic, great autonomy and understanding capabilities in a domain that was, to a great extent, totally new to him."

Required skills: numerical modeling, hydraulics, computer science engineering, advanced C++ coding, mastering of French language

-- State of Vaud Canton, Transportation Department (Lausanne, 2015)

Erik Zakhia did another, two-months internship in the Transportation Department of the State of Vaud Canton in between January and March 2015. Erik worked on constructing, framing and writing the first "Rapport de l'Observatoire de la Mobilité" that analyzed and described the behavior of the inhabitants of the Vaud Canton in terms of mobility, the progression of the modal shares of each transportation modes over the last decades, the evolution of the quality of the air (air pollution...) in function of the policies that were adopted, etc.

Christian Liaudat, the supervisor of Erik, was greatly satisfied with his work that he described as going far beyond what was expected from an intern, describing Erik as "a quiet and agreeable person, who worked with great efficiency and a lot of enthusiasm in the missions that were confided to him, taking a lot of initiatives, demonstrating great analytical and writing skills."

Required skills: transportation engineering, air pollution indicators, correlation studies between mobility and sociology, advanced microsoft excel use, analytical writing

- Extracurriculars

While studying at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Erik Zakhia made it a point of honor to visit Switzerland in its entirety. He organized walks and hikings with his fellow students, in many remote places of the country, visiting historical towns and castles, valleys, mountains and lakes that would later inspire him in his writing projects.

Erik also got used to practice jogging on a daily basis, along the shores of the Leman Lake, running in between 3 and 10 kilometers almost every evening.

Erik continued working on his project of a historical novel taking place in Mount Lebanon in the 1600s, writing the first hundred pages of his novel at night, after full days of studies.

In October 2014, Erik met Annelies Broeders who would later become his writing partner. In February 2015, Annelies Broeders and Erik Zakhia started co-writing a historical-fantasy novel taking place in Lausanne. They together wrote the first 150 pages of their novel in the next three months, in parallel of their studies/internship, working late at night on their project.

Meeting Annelies Broeders changed the life of Erik, as, he recognized her as his twin soul, his other half, discovering they had the same dreams, the same sensitivities, the same way of perceiving life, the same passion for reading and writing, the same love for drawing, the same interest for urban planning and historical towns. Things were never the same afterwards.

During his experience at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Erik did a bit of theater, and he continued to read book after book, during his free time, discovering a whole new genre Annelies Broeders introduced him to: that of fantasy novels, that very soon, became Erik's favorite, giving him the idea to mix historical and fantasy elements in the books he would write.

Erik also hopped up a train from time to time, exploring the nearby countries, such as Germany, France and Italy. The two pictures below were taken in Dieppe, France, and Mount Vesuvio, Italy. 

And for longer holidays, Erik returned to Amchit, Mount Lebanon, where his family lived, never losing touch with the land where he grew up. During the month or two Erik spent in Amchit, he took care of the garden, as much as he could, to help the small trees he had planted several years before survive and thrive. Planting was something that missed in Switzerland, as there, Erik had no garden and no land to plant. 

Bachelor of Engineering

 - American University of Beirut: 2009 - 2013

Erik Zakhia obtained his Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut (AUB), With Distinctions (Final grade: 86.6 / 100 - GPA 3.75 / 4), having been six semesters over eight on the Dean's Honors List.

Erik took a great diversity of courses, such as advanced Mathematics and Physics, Statics (Autocad), Materials Engineering, Thermodynamics, Robotics, Hydraulic Engineering, Electric circuits, Programming (C++, Matlab, Labview), Renewable energies, but also two courses about English Literature, a course about Environmental ethics, and two Creative Writing classes.

Erik obtained high grades in almost all the courses he followed, but he didn't limit his university experience to studying.

In between 2010 - 2011, Erik made a politically engaged choice, deciding to struggle against the choice of the Italian government led by Berlusconi to build four nuclear power plants in Italy, that would implicate huge investments. In Erik's beliefs, public money should be invested in truly sustainable projects, and, in his opinion, nuclear energy does not respond to the criteria of sustainability. Therefore, from Lebanon, Erik engaged himself in an online campaign using social media platforms in order to convince fellow Italian citizens to vote against the construction of the four nuclear power plants, in the popular referendum that would take place in 2011. Erik, thanks to his engineering background, and his capacity to write clearly and precisely, and to argue efficiently, became one of the administrator of a Facebook page counting tens of thousands of followers, taking the time, after his studying hours, to answer all the persons who had doubts about the use of nuclear energy, wondering if it could be the solution. Erik spent hundreds of hours in this struggle, that proved itself winning at the end, as the Italian people voted against the construction of nuclear power plants, and the government of Berlusconi was forced to abandon its project. In Erik's opinion, the solution to the energetical challenges is through a clever mix of renewable energies combined with a degrowth policy (encouraging people to live a slower life, and to consume local goods, and to produce as much as they can themselves, instead of relying on importations, that consume a lot of energy).

In between 2011 and 2012, Erik Zakhia became the President of the Environmental Club of the American University of Beirut. In parallel to his studies, Erik led a group of eighty volunteers (forty of them were regularly active) in a variety of projects. Erik launched a vast university campaign to try to decrease the energy and electricity use on campus, raising awareness about how much energy is wasted while using air conditioners, advocating instead to open windows and connect with the external surroundings on a campus where hundreds of trees grow. As the President of the Environmental Club Erik also devised and launched a carpooling website, the first one in Lebanon, called www.autopooling.com, with the help of a computer engineer. In this way, Erik encouraged the students and employees of the American University of Beirut to carpool instead of taking their own cars, as the university is located in one of the busyiest neighborhoods of Beirut (Hamra), directly by the Mediterranean Sea. The echo of the carpooling website Erik launched, by his own initiative, reached far beyond the walls of university, and he was thus interviewed by several national newspapers, a radio and a television, and these interviews are still available online. The third project Erik worked on was encouraging recycling at university. Another iconic action the Environmental Club led by Erik was a tree planting organized in the middle of the streets of Hamra, the bustling neighborhood around the American University of Beirut. The students themselves planted trees along the sidewalks, with the collaboration of the Municipality of Beirut. The passion of Erik for the environmental struggle made his face known at university, and years afterwards, many people still remember the actions of the Environmental Club that was presided by him, as the kind of projects that were undertaken by Erik were daring, ambitious, creative, and successful, starting from zero.

In 2013, while Erik finished his studies at the American University of Beirut, he started working on his first, serious project to write a novel. The aim of Erik was to write a historical novel taking place in Mount Lebanon, in between the 1600s and 1800s. Therefore, Erik dedicated hundreds of hours of his time to do historical research, in the Library of the American University of Beirut, that is the largest library of the entire Middle East, and that contains a lot of old books, in various langaguages. Erik read dozens and dozens of history books, traveler diaries, written in the past centuries, to get an accurate image of how life looked like in the 1600s in Mount Lebanon. Erik started building the plot of his historical novel, but his writing project was interrupted by the end of his studies at the American University of Beirut, and the start of his master studies at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

Another hobby that Erik developed, in parallel with his studies, his environmental activities, reading, writing, and planting, was hiking. During these four years spent at the American University of Beirut, Erik explored in the company of a few friends, many regions of Lebanon, some close to the sea, and other remote places within the mountains. Lebanon counts thousands of historical sites that are not even mapped, and Erik developed a passion to discover these places no one knew about, in order to later inspire himself from them in the novels he would write. These historical places date back to 1000, 2000 or even 3000 years backward, and are often located in beautiful natural places of wilderness (forests, valleys, rivers, etc.) difficult of access. 

The picture below was taken during one of those explorations, discovering a medieval, crusader, abandoned castle in a village called Smar Jbeil. Later on, this castle was restored. But the first time Erik visited it, it was filled with wild flowers, and a shepherd had brought his sheep to eat the grass, and drink from the abandoned castle wells. The legend says the castle of Smar Jbeil has a hundred wells. The origins of Smar Jbeil go back to the Phoenicians, 3000 years ago. Smar Jbeil counts several beautiful churchs, and a roofless church carpeted with glanses that fall from the nearby centuries old oak tree. 

Childhood & School

Birth

Erik Zakhia was born in Beirut on the 8th of May 1991, at 5h55 pm. He spent the first three years of his life in Amchit, his hometown, before moving to Beirut in September 1994, when he started going to school.

Citizenships

Lebanese, Italian, French, Colombian (all by birth right)

Languages

French (mother tongue), Italian (mother tongue), English (fluent, creative tongue), Lebanese Arabic (fluent/intermediate), Spanish (notions), Dutch (beginner)

Education (school):

– Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais de Beyrouth: 1994 – 2009

Erik Zakhia did his entire schooling at the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais de Beyrouth, from 1994 to 2009, when he obtained his French Baccalaureate, with a “très bien” mention (Final grade: 17.3/20) choosing the Scientific option with a specialty in mathematics. He obtained the 2nd best grade of his class (over 30 students).

Activities: 1 year of judo, 2 years of athletics, 3 years of soccer, 1 year of theater, ping pong

Erik Zakhia got high grades in both scientific and literary fields, obtaining excellent results in French literature studies and essays, philosophy, mathematics, physics, geology and history; he was generally very well appreciated by all his professors as he most of the time made an effort to participate in the discussions in class, and to answer the questions no one else knew to answer. He also was known for his athletics skills (speed and endurance) and his ping pong skills.

Writing contest: Erik participated into a creative writing contest in 2008-2009 in between all the French schools of Lebanon, winning the 2nd prize of the entire contest. The theme of the short story to write was “Et si j’étais un autre?” The picture below was taken during the award ceremony of the contest.

– Extracurriculars

Christian faith: Erik Zakhia grew up in the maronite-catholic Christian faith, receiving his baptism as a child, and doing his first communion around age 10. For two years, after school, he studied the basics of catechism, and of how to be a good, kind, respectful, fair and forgiving person.

Marathons: Erik Zakhia participated every year (for three or four years in a row) to the Beirut marathon of 10 km.

Other skills Erik Zakhia learnt outside from school are skiing (he learnt to ski on the slopes of Laqlouq and Faraya in his childhood, and later perfected his skills), and open sea swimming.

Erik Zakhia was also passionate by constructions: small scale rock and mud constructions in the garden, wooden constructions (kapla), lego, etc.

His entire life was rhythmed by plants. Since an early age, under the influence of his great grandfather, his grandfather, his great uncle, and his mother, Erik Zakhia developed a passion for plants and botanic. When other children and teenagers at school wished to go out, or to play video games or playstation, Erik preferred the company of plants. In his childhood, and later in his teenagerhood, he learnt to plant all sorts of trees and fruits trees, by seeds and by slips, keeping a small plant nursery. Later on, Erik planted the hundreds of trees and shrubs he had grown by himself into the soil, and now, one decade and a half afterwards, these trees have become tall and majestic, and have started to bear fruits, in the “Fantasy Garden of Ylliriel”.

And when Erik returned from school, in Beirut, with no possibility to plant or take care of a garden, he read. Hundreds of books, novels, and comics. He developed a passion for reading since age 7 or 8, and read all the youth classics, as well as most of the classics of the French, British, American, and Italian literature. Erik Zakhia however did not limit his interest to classics, and he soon discovered his favorite genres were historical novels, and later on, high fantasy novels. Erik obtained his high grades at school, and later at university, with relatively few hours of study. The rest of his free time was dedicated to reading.

And since an early age, Erik Zakhia knew that one day, he would write a book, or several ones. How exactly, and about what, he didn’t know yet.

Other hobbies of Erik included following cars races (formula 1), and soccer games (Italy / Fiorentina), and playing strategy boardgames (chess, stratego, risk, monopoly…) and strategy historical video games (age of empires, anno…). However these hobbies were secondary respect to planting and reading.