If you want to know more about Cyprus, please read..

In Dexter’s Diary I have allowed myself a paragraph about the political situation and my impressions come from various publications now on my bookshelf:

Laurence Durrell’s Bitter Lemons tells a personal story of Cyprus in the early 1950’s.

As we go about our lives in Kuzey Kibris, it is difficult to fault the conclusion of journalist Harry Scott-Gibbons in The Genocide Files that, since 1974, there is no “Cyprus Problem” – apart from international recognition. The Greek Cypriots who tolerated the Turkish Cypriot minority suffered dreadfully at the hands of EOKA. Turkey risked expulsion from NATO by intervening in 1974 and TRNC declared itself independent in 1983. This has fuelled anti-Turkish propaganda to the extent that you cannot buy “Turkish Delight” in the South!

For a very interesting approach I highly recommend The Cyprus Tapes by David Mathews.

For a heart rending personal history of a Turkish Cypriot who embraced life in the British Commonwealth, the Republic of Cyprus and now the TRNC, please read The Death of Friendship by Türkan Aziz MBE, formerly head nurse at the Nicosia General Hospital.

In Reality No One Was Asleep by İsmail Tansu, founder of TMT, gives a fascinating insight, not only to the Turkish fight against EOKA, but also the changing political scene in Turkey.

In The Cyprus Conspiracy, Brendan O’Malley and Ian Craig give a wider interpretation of how contemporaneous international events affected Cyprus. This deeply researched but “readable” book quotes US and UK government sources.

Perhaps the most interesting work of all is Echoes from the Dead Zone by Yiannis Papadakis. Born in 1964, Yiannis is a Greek Cypriot who decided to study the “Dead Zone” between the Greek and Turkish communities for his PhD in anthropology.

© David Young, 2012.