The Cypriot

By Andreas Koumi

The Cypriot is a powerful story of love across a divide of religion and identity, of passionate loyalties and heart-rending choices. 

It is the 1950s: Cyprus is under British rule. The struggle for freedom begins. To the Orthodox Christian majority, freedom means enosis – union with Greece. To the Muslim minority, enosis means disaster. Andonis, a Christian, struggles for his own freedom: to be a tailor and escape a life in his father's fields; to be a Cypriot and be with his forbidden Muslim love. At stake are family and friendships, beliefs and traditions, village and homeland. 

The novel builds to a climax in the Turkish invasion of 1974, an event whose impact is still felt regionally and globally. This is a gripping story of a community torn apart by outside forces, of mistrust and bloodshed fuelled by international politics. It gives the background to the partition and acrimony that still exist in Cyprus, now reappearing on news agendas with an EU angle, following Cyprus's accession and the start of Turkey's membership negotiations.