From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer. 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. It was only in the hours after reading it that I had to reflect that, hang on, this guy sounds like a real jerk. So, when I got The Bitter Lemons of Cyprus out of a Kindle deal (I was planning to read the infamous Alexandria Quartet for a while and thought it would be nice to get the feel of Durrell’s writing beforehand), I was curious, to say the least.

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

While the book starts out a light-hearted memoir not unlike Under the Tuscan sun--expat moves in and begins renovating a house surrounded by local colorful characters--the book eventually turns a bit darker. Durrell tells of young students in his class reciting (badly) tales of Byron, with tears in their eyes. I did find that he has a traditional perspective with regards to colonialism and dealing with the local population, which I was a little surprised about. Panos put away his spectacles and fell to cutting up the coarse brown loaf, saying as he did so: "On days like this, in places like these, what does it all matter? It had already circulated, or been passed back and forth between great powers, East and West, many times.The reportage on the civil unrest contrasts sharply with the lyrical passages about the island's beauty and long history, and this brings the book to a poignant conclusion as Durrell prepares to leave the island and a way of life he so clearly loves.

Bitter Lemons - Wikipedia

Durrell teaches fourth form English and later accepts a job as press advisor with the colonial administration. Between them, they agree on a budget and a few days later he is informed that there is a property that may be suitable in the village Bellapix. Thus, I heartily recommend this very descriptive account, which is really mostly memoir, of Lawrence Durell’s experience before and during the 1950s Cypriot uprising. Of course I was aware of sibling rivalry and how my feelings were being manipulated craftily (and charmingly if I may add) in My Family and Other Animals by the playful little brother against the insufferable know-it-all elder. It became a bit dry somewhere along the way, but that can't be helped considering it had to delve into history.

He settles into a dilapidated villa, and with his poet's eye for beauty - and passable Greek - vividly captures the moods and atmospheres of island life in a changing world. FROM MY BLOG) Israel is again accused of killing and otherwise abusing innocent civilians in its attempt to control the Gaza strip.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus | Faber

I finished the book, which was in my opinion, superbly written, very poignant and at times witty, with tears in my eyes. My having just visited Cyprus and having accompanied a good friend back to the occupied side for the very first time since the 1974 invasion of her village, was the catalyst for my wanting to read this book. And it is precisely the observational power afforded by those textual skills that led Durrell to grasp, so well, the forces and movements happening around him: an ancient and unique island ecology battered by storms and turbulent currents from elsewhere.A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will--whatever we may think. A classic of travel writing, In Morocco is Edith Wharton's remarkable account of her journey to that country during World War I.

Bitter Lemons of Cyprus - Listening Books Bitter Lemons of Cyprus - Listening Books

Instead, Cyprus eventually joined Greece as another EC member, and adopted the Euro as its currency. If you survive through the house renovations and teenage girls fawning over a scrubby git namely their English teacher (who by the way gives a spookily detailed account of their adoration), you are rewarded with the worse part the book or what I choose to name as `How We Rule Imperially`. Durrell was looking for a congenial Mediterranean lifestyle and a place to spend time writing the first novel in his famous Alexandria Quartet. The island that they thought they were governing, the island of the Tree of Idleness, was disappearing fast. Bitter Lemons' is Durrell's paen to the beauty and mystery of Cyprus, from the romance of the characters living in Bellapaix where Durrell bought a house, to the beauty of the mountain ranges and the excitement of the slow but gradual uprising of the Greek Cypriots who are determined to achieve 'Enosis' - union with Greece and freedom from British rule.With neither beauty of body nor sense of beauty in mind, with neither personal restlessness[ανησυχία] nor pride of origin. I don't agree that artists are born not made, but do love the end of the first quote from "and the best of them. It is difficult to find a stronger statement in support of the cultural chauvinism of Western Europe and North America.