An evocative and lyrical history of Cyprus and the Mediterranean. Think of a place where can
you stand at the intersection of Christian and Arab cultures at the crossroads of the British
Ottoman Byzantine Roman and Egyptian empires a place marked by the struggle between fascism
and communism and where the capital city is divided in half as a result of bloody internal
conflict where the ancient olive trees of Homer's time exist alongside the undersea cables
which provide the world's internet. In Cypria named after a lost Cypriot epic which was the
prequel to The Odyssey British Cypriot writer Alex Christofi writes a deeply personal lyrical
and historical portrait and history of the island of Cyprus from ancient times to the present
day. This sprawling evocative and poetic book begins with the legend of the cyclops and the
storytelling at the heart of the Mediterranean culture. Christofi travels to salt lakes
mosques and the eerie towns deserted at the start of the 1974 war. He retells the particularly
bloody history of Cyprus during the twentieth century and considers his own identity as
traveler and returner as Odysseus was. Written in the same sensitive witty and beautifully
rendered prose as his last book Dostoevsky in Love with a novelist's flair and eye for detail
Cypria combines the political cultural and geographical history of Cyprus with reflections on
time place and belonging.
