Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on A Mediterranean Island
Lawrence Durrell
Language: English
Pages: 160
ISBN: 2:00107535
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
On a Mediterranean island divided, a man finds peace in a time of perilous unrest in this stunning memoir
In 1953, as the British Empire relaxes its grip upon the world, the island of Cyprus bucks for independence. Some cry for union with Athens, others for an arrangement that would split the island down the middle, giving half to the Greeks and the rest to the Turks. For centuries, the battle for the Mediterranean has been fought on this tiny spit of land, and now Cyprus threatens to rip itself in half.
Into this escalating conflict steps Lawrence Durrell—poet, novelist, and a former British government official. After years serving the Crown in the Balkans, he yearns for a return to the island lifestyle of his youth. With humor, grace, and passable Greek, Durrell buys a house, secures a job, and settles in for quiet living, happy to put up his feet until the natives begin to consider wringing his neck. More than a travel memoir, this is an elegant picture of island life in a changing world.
which looked like something fitter for Saint Peter’s keyring than my own). She grabbed the key, I say, and put it to her breast like a child as she said: “Never in this life.” She rocked it back and forth, suckled it, and put it down again. Sabri now became masterful and put it in his pocket. At this she let out a yell and advanced on him shouting: “You give me back my key and I shall leave you with the curses of all the saints upon you.” Sabri stood up like a showman and held the key high above
job—for much can go wrong, you know. You will find the cost of cement brick there, and rendering per cubic meter.” I tried to express my gratitude but he waved his hand. “My dear Durrell,” he said, “when one is warm to me I am warm to him back. You are my friend now and I shall never change even if you do.” We drank deeply and in silence. “I was sent to you by a Greek,” I said, “and now the Turk sends me back to a Greek.” He laughed aloud. “Cyprus is small,” he said, “and we are all friends,
was Michaelis who now stood massively smiling, with one arm resting on the shoulder of Anthemos, the grocer, whose little shop stood at the foot of the hill and from whom I would have to obtain food and fuel. He was a portly youth full of quaint humors. “Sir, I am hoping to grow fat on you. My shop needs a Noble Buyer like yourself. Otherwise how shall I marry next year?” “What of your wife’s dowry?” I said, and got my laugh. “His wife’s dowry is already consumed,” said Andreas. They were all
We say to her: take as much as you want, build what you like, stay forever, but let us have our island. At least if not today, tomorrow, in twenty years.…” The question of sovereignty was always the basic complex and I had been forced to design a sophistry to meet it. “Your brother has a piece of land, Andreas. You love him. He loves you. He tells you to borrow it and build a house on it for your family. ‘Build what you like,’ he says, ‘and it will remain yours forever.’ Now, while you love and
with crusader castles pitched on the dizzy spines of the mountains, commanding the roads which run over the saddles between. The very names smell of Gothic Europe: Buffavento, Hilarion, Bellapaix. Orange and mulberry, carob and cypress—the inhabitants of this landscape discountenance those other green intruders from the Arabian world, the clear green fronds of palms and the coarse platters of banana leaves.… But I had already begun to see the island as whole, building my picture of it from the