This week Cypriot novelist Andreas Koumi talks to Toplum Postasi about his book The Cypriot and the work he does at Exposure.

 UK born and bred Cypriot Andreas Koumi is the writer of The Cypriot, a powerful novel of a Muslim-Christian Cypriot romance set in rural Cyprus in the 1950s. The tragic love story between Christian Andonis and Muslim Funda takes place at a time in Cyprus’ history where Orthodox Christians yearn for Enosis or Union with Greece, which they believe will bring them freedom, while Muslim Cypriots, who fear the consequences of union with Greece, rally for Taksim or Partition. The novel leads the reader to events in 1974, when the couple, like the island itself, face separation forever.

Interview by Alkan Chaglar

Q. What motivated you to write ‘The Cypriot’?

A. “One of motivations for writing the novel was to show things from a different perspective, whereby we (the Cypriots) were once – and can be again – one people and Cyprus an island for all Cypriots. We have to find a way forward on that basis if we are to overcome this decades old impasse. My experience here at Exposure, the Haringey-based, award-winning youth media charity that I run, is one of the inspirations for writing this novel. This part of London is in one of the most diverse areas in the world, with people from so many different backgrounds, all Londoners and all coming together in a spirit of understanding to help themselves and their community. Now, if we can cooperate and achieve amazing things together, without racism or animosity, here in Haringey – then why not in Cyprus?

Q. But why a love story?

A. I wanted to get the message across to a wider audience about the tragedy of Cyprus and I felt a love story was a good way of doing so. One of the films I admire is Titanic. Director James Cameron wanted to tell the story of an ocean liner that sank and the horror facing the passengers who knew their time had come. He did this through a love story and it proved a success.

The idea of writing a love story is to bring home the fact that Cyprus was about to be cut in two to a wider audience. The story of Andonis, who falls in love with Funda – one a Christian and the other a Muslim – is symbolic of Cyprus, as these two communities have coexisted for centuries before outside forces and extremists was to force them apart.

Q. What is the aim of the novel? And what are your personal aspirations?

A. If the novel is a success and reaches the mainstream, ie. non-Cypriots, who can appreciate the culture, understand the tragedy and feel for all the people, then maybe Cypriots might, in turn, begin to look at themselves in a different way.

I’m not a politician. I’m someone who has a written a novel and I want to help if I can. I am someone who has grown up in a multi-cultural environment and, unlike many young Cypriots in Cyprus today, I’ve experienced something they cannot – happy coexistence between diverse peoples.

Q. I understand, together with the Cypriot Academy, you have taken to writing the Cypriot vernacular in the Latin script in ‘The Cypriot’, can you explain why?

A. The Christian Cypriots use many different words and have many different sounds to Greek that I wanted to get across in the book to non-Cypriot readers. Certain age-old conventions, phonological sounds and the way we form sentences differ from Greek, for instance ‘K’ becomes ‘G’ in Gibreiga (the Cypriot vernacular), while for certain sounds there is no Greek equivalent. We use ‘sh’ and ‘ch’, but in Greek this would be spelt as ‘si’ and ‘tz’ respectively. Such spellings don’t do justice to these sounds and make the true pronunciations inaccessible to non-Cypriot readers.

In ‘The Cypriot’, I use Gibreiga deliberately because that is what was so widely spoken in Cyprus in the 1950s. References to terms like Do Banayiri are deliberate attempts to spell words according to how a Cypriot would pronounce them. Similarly we spell O Kyprios (Cypriot) as O Gibreos. Not only is this closer to the pronunciation of Kibrislica (Cypriot Turkish) for Gibrizli, but it is phonetically how we, as Cypriots, refer to ourselves.