"A brilliant exploration of Cyprus's long history of cultural resilience. Superbly composed."
-- Guardian "Poetic...Compelling" -- New Statesman One of National Geographic's Summer Reads
2024 Think of a place where you can 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 conflict where the ancient olive trees of Homer's time exist
alongside the undersea cables which link up the world's internet. In Cypria British Cypriot
writer Alex Christofi writes a deeply personal lyrical history of the island of Cyprus from
the era of goddesses and mythical beasts 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 crusader castles mosques and the eerie
town 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 sensitive witty and beautifully rendered prose 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.
