TuCy VS GrCy, right-wing GrCy VS left-wing GrCy, divided like cancerous cells, 2 multiplied by 2 equals 4. and 4 by 2 =8 and so on. One of the first schools in Cyprus open in 1812 (under Ottoman rule) in the capital, Nicosia, the Pancyprian Gymnasium.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell - Faber Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell - Faber

Lamplight, wine and good conversation sealed in the margins of the day so that one slept at night with a sense of repletion and plenitude, as if one were never more to wake.This is not a political book, but simply a somewhat impressionistic study of the moods and atmospheres of Cyprus during the troubled years 1953-56 Lawrence Durrell was a British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. Born in 1912 in India to British colonial parents, he was sent to school in England and later moved to Corfu with his family - a period which his brother Gerald fictionalised in My Family and Other Animals- later filmed as ITV's The Durrells in Corfu - and which he himself described in Prospero's Cell. The first of Durrell's island books, this was followed by Reflections on a Marine Venus on Rhodes; Bitter Lemons, on Cyprus, which won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize; and, later, The Greek Islands. Lose yourself in this classic prize-winning memoir of life in 1950s Cyprus on the brink of revolution by the legendary king of travel writing and real-life family member of The Durrells in Corfu. Because I am not really up to date of Cyprus history, Lawrence's descriptions while sensitive and non-accusatory kind of fly over my head. The only moral of the story I can draw out of it, is that wherever Britain tried to empire build they screwed up due to a kind of self satisfied blindness. Look at the revolution in India? Or the never ending troubles in the Middle East today, largely caused by Rule Britannica's meddling. So to with Cyprus, apparently, but I could not follow it at all, I crept through that part, a paragraph at a time and almost gave it up as a DNF. What is travel writing? Consider a book in which the narrative and characters pivot around a single tree, rooted to the centre of a lonely cliff-top village on an island almost forgotten to the world. The tree is more than a totem or a metaphor: rather it is a geocosmic force around which the entire Earth rotates. Younger villagers feel it’s centrifugal effects, spinning them out to sea to be caught up in strong currents and carried off to other lands. The old have learnt to get close to the centre of the force, where all is stillness, willingly embracing the inertia beneath its shady branches. The most successful in the art of doing very little have enjoyed its peace for so long that their olive-coloured wrinkled skins are indistinguishable from its roots and its branches. It is then the ‘Tree of Idleness’ around which the book pivots.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus - Lawrence Durrell - Google Books

I am aware what happened to Cyprus after Lawrence Durrell returned briefly to the UK (before living out the rest of his life in France) but I shall never know what happened to some of the Cypriot characters who helped and befriended him in the few years he called Cyprus home, and that to me is also sad. First, let us talk about the writing itself: gorgeous, of course. At time a little over the top, always evocative and very visually descriptive with the ability to make both the island of Cyprus and it's inhabitants spring to life. I think the first person narrative gives one an excellent character to follow through the story (though whether it might be a close portrayal of the author I have no idea) and see the countryside through, as it were.Lawrence Durrell left his house and village behind -- and his book ends -- in 1956. In 1960, Britain surrendered sovereignty over Cyprus. Fighting between Greeks and Turks broke out in 1974, when a military junta tried to force union with Greece, and the island was effectively partitioned between the two groups. The government to this day has no control over the Turkish area. Enosis never occurred. Instead, Cyprus eventually joined Greece as another EC member, and adopted the Euro as its currency. Without this armed struggled against the British, Cyprus would have gained her independence probably 10-20 years later during the rise of decolonisation in Africa. But we were impatient and as a Greek proverb says Whoever rushes stumbles and we did. and we are still in the ditch. Bitter Lemons is an autobiographical work by writer Lawrence Durrell, describing the three years (1953–1956) he spent on the island of Cyprus. The book was awarded the Duff Cooper Prize for 1957, the second year the prize was awarded.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus by Lawrence Durrell | Goodreads

And this about and words from his friend Panos which are even more poignant with the knowledge that a few days after this meeting, Panos was killed. Published just after the time Lawrence Durrell spent in Cyprus first as a school teacher and then as a press agent for the British government (Cyprus then under British colonial rule). He spent about three years there in the mid 1950s. Durrell was looking for a congenial Mediterranean lifestyle and a place to spend time writing the first novel in his famous Alexandria Quartet. Durrel had been five years in Serbia and really wasn’t sure if he wanted to live in the Mediterranean anymore. He couldn’t afford to live in Athens so the next best thing after that was Cyprus. Decision made he makes his way to Venice to get the boat there. Falling into conversation with a man there, he questions why Durrell wants to go there at all: ‘It is not much of a place’, the man says, ‘Arid and without water. The people drink to excess.’ To Durrell, it sounded perfect. Bitter Lemons of Cyprus is Lawrence Durrell's unique account of his time in Cyprus, during the 1950s Enosis movement for freedom of the island from British colonial rule. Winner of the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, it is a document at once personal, poetic and subtly political - a masterly combination of travelogue, memoir and treatise.Durrell was asked to take up a position as public information officer for the colonial administration which puts him in a position to see the problem from many perspectives. The terrorism (which the Greeks learned in the Balkans during WWII and which is remarkably like contemporary terrorism) that ensues is destructive and sad and almost impossible to stop. I bought this because I enjoyed his little brother's account of life in Greece very much. I was also hoping to learn more about Greek influence and Cyprus as a tourist destination. Whilst this all happened 5 years or so before I was even born, what happened to those characters was of interest to me, as I see some of their traits, behaviours, spirit, friendliness, and generosity in the Greek (mostly Cretan) people that I have the honour to call my friends today.

Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell | Goodreads Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell | Goodreads

Durrell was an extensive travel writer who has lived in several Greek and Italian islands, and also wrote books about them. His most famous and critically acclaimed work is the Alexandria quartet which I'm planning to read for Egypt. He was born in Jalandhar, British India, but didn't stay here for long. and thank's to EOKA the Turkish Nationalism was rekindled and the Pogroms in Constantinople occurred in September 1955. Thanks to EOKA Cypriots were divided, thanks to EOKA Cyprus began a journey down to Hades. We got independence (1959/1960) but in 3 years' time (1963) we were divided (unofficially) waiting for the official division (1974) And we are still waiting, divided in discord; Much as we Greeks have made a horrible mess of things in Cyprus and in many other places besides, you come to realize that the love the author has for Cypriots is the love a slave owner can truly and honestly sometimes feel for his slave. The language itself descends to one of loyal “subjects” of the Empire and “terrorists.” Initially my reaction as an Hellenophile is one of sadness and sorrow at the short sighted-ness of the British Government at the time.The timing of this is unfortunate though as this is just as there is growing civil unrest in Cyprus. Students are joining the rebellion and there are small acts of terror from grenades and homemade bombs. The British (as usual) misjudged the situation and made a bad situation much worse. His early chapter about buying a house in Cyprus is easily one of the funniest things I've ever read. It was only in the hours after reading it that I had to reflect that, hang on, this guy sounds like a real jerk. Durrell found a great, almost incomprehensible love for the British among Greek Cypriots, who, as did mainland Greeks, viewed the English as the people who had supported the Greek struggle for independence against the Ottomans. Greek Cypriots repeatedly assured him of this love, assured him that their struggle for Enosis in no way represented a hatred of the British. But by the end of Durrell's stay in Cyprus, in 1956, these old bonds between the two peoples were being broken -- tragically and unnecessarily broken in Durrell's opinion.