It is July 1974 and on the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again.

Christy Lefteri’s novel “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” is a beautiful novel about Syrian beekeeper Nuri and his artist wife Afra. They live in Aleppo, a beautiful Syrian city where they are rich in friends and family until everything comes crashing down. Book Genre: 20th Century, Cultural, Fiction, Greece, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literature, War So she lives outside the town and hides from her neighbours' eyes. But, held captive with the very women who have made her life so lonely, Koki is finally able to tell them the truth. To talk of the Turkish shoemaker who came to the town and took her heart away with him when he left.Everyone has always talked about Koki. They never believed she was her father's daughter and her mother died too soon to quiet their wagging tongues. And when she became pregnant and there was no sign of a husband, her fate was sealed. Songbirds was inspired by real life events where five domestic workers and two children went missing in Cyprus and nobody searched for them because they were foreign. The Plice specifically refused to launch an investigation and said that they were not interested in concerning themselves with the lives of foreign maids. It is for this reason that she writes poignant and realistic depictions of families living in exile and how these can cause a lot of pain and trauma. In 2010, she published her debut work “A Watermelon, a Fish, and a Bible” but it was her second novel that made her name as an author to watch.

No matter what story I’m writing, whatever the circumstances are, it is the bond and the love between people, between friends, between a parent and child, a husband and a wife, that is the real heart of the story. It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to their ordinary lives. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. For one young woman, brought up without her mother and shunned by the community, the invasion brings an opportunity to, at long last, share her side of the story. To an invading soldier, it becomes a search for his one true love, lost years ago. And for a man far from the action, it brings memories of the past flooding into his mind – a woman, a child and a secret never told. A Watermelon, A Fish and a Bible is a breathtaking novel about love, loss, identity and what family really means. A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible by Christy Lefteri – eBook Details The best bits of this book are the beginning and the end. It starts off with this really fairy-tale like sequence, full of symbolism. It's beautiful, and sad, setting you up to journey through war-torn Cyprus in 1974. Lefteri moves you through the capture of Kyrenia through several viewpoints: Maroulla's childish innocence, Adem Berker's loss and guilt, Richard's longing, Commander Serkan Demir's anger and hatred, Koki's fear. Sometimes it's too much--the core of this story feels like Koki's, the way she's caught between Greeks and Turks, an outcast to both groups as much as she is deeply tied to both. I loved the way Adem's, Richard's and Koki's stories weaved in and out of each other, I didn't care so much about Serkan (Lefteri admitted that he was a rather two-dimensional character without an arc) or what his whole confusing interaction with the baby was about, and whilst I loved the thread of the rose and the petals and the innocent fairy tale of Maroulla that both starts and ends the novel, she wasn't ultimately very important to the story. Whilst she acted as a sort-of impetus for Koki to keep moving, keep trying to survive, I kind of feel that she could have been replaced by anything (or anyone) else. She had left her home in Sri Lanka and moved to the Mediterranean island to make money to support the daughter she left behind. But one evening, Nisha steps out of the house to go run an errand and disappears. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2020-12-10 08:23:19 Boxid IA1998922 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

On the way to Europe, Nuri is comforted by knowing that his business partner and cousin Mustafa is waiting for them. He has recently established an apiary and has been training Syrian refugees on how to keep bees in Yorkshire. Christy's latest novel Songbirds will be published by Manilla on 8 July. You can find all of Christy's books on the Suffolk Libraries catalogue. Readers in Suffolk will be familiar with your novel The Beekeeper of Aleppo. How did you find Nuri's voice in the book and what was it like to write? Was there anything you nearly left out of the final version? Even though her parents loved her very much and she led a very happy childhood, she always sensed that something unsettling had happened to them. For some reason, she intuitively knew that they left because things were not all good and happy.

There is a lot of sadness, fear and violent acts in her writing but they are necessary to describe how ugly coups, wars and invasions are.

Creative Play

The war destroys everything they care for and they have to flee. However, Afra has seen so many terrible things that they have to go on a perilous journey through Greece and Turkey to start a new and uncertain life in the United Kingdom. As such, many of her novels and particularly the Beekeeper of Aleppo resonate with her sympathy for Syrian families and children. Your book is regularly discussed by book groups and read in libraries by people who could never imagine being in the situation that Nuri and Afra find themselves. What is the message you would like the reader to take away with them? I was pulled in by the title of this book, which, believe it or not, does relate to the story. Lefteri's prose is stunning. Her language shines with life and drew vibrant images to my mind when I read this book. Her descriptions compile most of the novel and they are definitely the highlight. In general, I tend to be bored with books centered around the descriptions of a particular place and time, and built up with details of the characters, and that don't really have a plot, but I wasn't. The author's style is so detailed that I could practically feel the hot summer wind and smell the egg-lemon soup.

It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the village of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. Koki, a young villager, feared and hated by her neighbours for her startling red hair, has spent her life in shadow. But held captive in the house to which the women of Kyrenia have been brought, she can at last speak to them as an equal. She can tell them her story of a summer long ago. The young, Turkish shoe-maker who came to the village and took her heart away with him when he left. And how she has longed for him all these years and never known why he left, what took him away. Adem Berker is a Turkish soldier and for him, the invasion of his former home is an opportunity to seek out the woman he has loved for so many years. Waiting for a chance to return, his only thought has been of her. And so, by cover of darkness, he searches every house, every pathway for a glimpse of that head of flames. For Richard, growing old and grey in a dank bedsit in the centre of London, where the underground trains shake the foundations, the invasion of Cyprus stirs memories of his time as a British pilot, of a woman, a child and a secret it is becoming all too difficult to keep.

So she lives outside the town and hides from her neighbours' eyes. But, held captive with the very women who have made her life so lonely, Koki is finally able to tell them the truth. To talk of the Turkish shoe-maker who came to the town and took her heart away with him when he left. And how she has longed for him all these years.