Cypria

An evocative and lyrical history of Cyprus and the Mediterranean.

Engaging, vigorous and at times passionate …Christofi offers a personal account as well as a carefully-annotated history. Rich in curious information.

From ancient myth to modern militarism, a brilliant exploration of Cyprus’s long history of cultural resilience. Superbly composed.

A remarkable book about a beautiful island that has lain in the path of every Mediterranean storm. Christofi is a witty and elegant guide to Cyprus ’s history.

An engaging portrait of Cyprus’s variegated and sometimes troubled past.

In this finely crafted new history of Cyprus, Christofi tells a remarkable story of an island where Christian and Arab cultures meet at a crossroads of empires , British, Ottoman, Byzantine, Roman and Egyptian. A lyrical account of a divided place that is in a way a microcosm of the European 20th century, but with olive trees.

In poetic prose, Cypria tells a wide-ranging national story. Christofi makes a compelling case for Cyprus as a uniquely clear vantage point from which to view the birth of the modern world.

In this beautifully-written book, Alex Christofi tells of the contradictions that make Cyprus so fascinating, an island as ageless as its olive trees and contestations over its historical memory.

Christofi sees Cyprus from both the inside and outside, as a returnee and a traveller. The result is a modern, original book that reinvigorates writing about place in an arresting, lucid, and connected way . It puts the island back in the middle of the map, brought to life in Christofi's always beautiful, erudite prose.

Clear, erudite and wonderfully affable , Christofi’s ability to fuse his own family's relationship to Cyprus with that of its wider history, makes Cypria a necessary and illuminating read. Warm, poised and informative , Christofi’s reach is expansive, bringing Cyprus into sharper focus without jettisoning or shying away from complex and sometimes unpleasant aspects of its recent past.

This beautifully-written book is a delight from start to finish, with gems on every page. Alex Christofi is a fond yet even handed guide to Cyprus. If you have never been this book will make you want to go.

Alex Christofi’s new book offers readers a thoughtful, unexpected look at Cyprus’s history.

[Alex Christofi] brings a novelist's eye to the subject, and a turn of phrase to leave the academic historians in the dust... It's a book that has the unmistakable whiff of a quality piece of publishing and has clearly been a labour of love.

Cypria is an impressively wide-ranging history of a fascinating island, written with a grace and lightness of touch that still manages to convey much of the bitterness of Cyprus’s recent past. It is a book to be enjoyed on a hot summer’s day…but also to be pondered when darker nights draw in.

This is an entertaining and well-researched history of the island.

Hippos[…]along with dwarf elephants, used to roam the island of Cyprus, one of many pleasing facts in Alex Christofi’s Cypria . Blending millennia of history with modern-day travelogue, the author covers the island as both the birthplace of Stoicism and a centre of the war trade, from the forging of Alexnader the Great’s favourite sword to its present use as a platform for RAF jets.

Alex Christofi is Editorial Director at Transworld and author of four books published in 12 languages, including the novels Let Us Be True and Glass , winner of the Betty Trask Prize for fiction. He has written for numerous publications including the Guardian , London Magazine , and the White Review . Dostoevsky in Love was named as a Literary Non-fiction Book of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times .