Novel
Eastern Mediterranean
Ανατολική Μεσόγειος
Evi Meleagrou · 1969
Synopsis
Nicosia, from the independence of 1960 to the first troubles between the two communities, at the end of 1963: a set of characters live through the political tension rising in the new state and feel its effects even in their private lives. The narrative constantly shifts point of view and sometimes goes back as far as Antiquity; it lets us hear Margarita's reveries and Ion's lessons, mixed with illusions. The book mourns a lost innocence.
Context
It is her first novel; in 1969 it received the first Cypriot state prize for the novel, then a state prize in Greece. With the next novel, published in 1981, it forms a diptych, the first part of a trilogy that the author did not complete. Critics see in it a break in Cypriot prose: innovative construction, the influence of modernism and of the French nouveau roman, interior monologues. The author said that the sense of continuity of Hellenism formed its core. Armida has reissued it, and Andrew Hendry translated it into English in 2015.
Who it is for
A demanding novel, with multiple voices, for those who want to feel from the inside the first three years of the Republic of Cyprus.
Prizes and reception
Distinguished by the State from its publication; its English translation represented Cyprus in the European selection of the Eurovision Book Contest.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.