The iconic journalist and author, Zachos Hatzifotiou, passed away at the age of 99. A few weeks ago, Zachos Hatzifotiou was admitted to the NIMTS hospital and was hospitalised for a serious health condition. The journalist celebratd his 99th birthday yesterday.

Zachos Hatzifotiou was a journalist and author who hailed from Psara. His family left the island in 1824, after its destruction by the Turks, and settled first in Syros and finally in Athens, in Plaka, where Zachos was born on September 28, 1923.

He graduated from the Experimental School of the University of Athens. During the Nazi occupation of Greece, at the age of 17, he escaped to Egypt, where he took part in military operations, first as a soldier in the Desert Pontiacs, at the siege of Tobruk, and then participating in the 3rd Mountain Brigade – Rimini, which entered Rimini first, where and was decorated.

In December, the brigade under his command undertook the expulsion of a small pocket of the EAM that had taken refuge near the stream of Ardittos without casualties, as he claims.

After the end of the war and his return, he worked in his family’s businesses (textile industry and trade) until 1956. From 1956 until 1962 he was the director of a publishing house in Paris. In the period 1962-1970, he was active in shipping and from 1970 he took up writing and journalism.

He worked as a chronographer in the newspaper “Kathimerini” (1974-1977), in “Tachydromos” under the pseudonym “Iakchos” from 1975, and in “Nea” as “the Distinctive” from 1977. He worked on television and became known for the show “The five minutes by Zachos Hatzifotiou”.

He also authored the books “Ta en oiko… en Dimo”, “Consciousness is for sale”, “It’s also cloudy in Mykonos”, “Always on Sunday”, “Iakhos and I”, “100 shows”, “Humor and painting “, “The Paths of War” and others.

Zachos Hatzifotiou became more widely known through the television five-minute social critique and as a lifestyle columnist, a “bon viveur” with many memories of Athenian life. He spoke English, French, Arabic, and Italian.