Description

The Winner of the 2023 Cypriot National Book Prize

When it was built in the 1950s, nothing symbolised Cyprus entering the modern world like the Ledra Palace Hotel. In Constantia Soteriou’s jewel of a novella, the ambitions and shortcomings of the island’s turbulent twentieth century are played out by its occupants. Among them we meet the king in exile who needs to drown his sorrows with a drink disguised to look like tea; the porter who, among the English roses of the hotel’s gardens, secretly plants a rose from his village to make his rosebud infusions; the UN officer who drinks lemonade to deal with the heat and the lies; and the cleaning lady who always carries her holy water with her. They are reluctant actors in history, evocatively captured in this moving, personal, and highly original portrait of civil strife and division.

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“Flavours bounce off the page and straight into the mouth” THE SUNDAY TIMES

“This is, quite simply, one of the most powerful books ever to come out of our island” CYPRUS MAIL

Publisher Review

'Celebrates human resilience... deftly takes us through the years of conflict.' Lucy Popescu, The Guardian (on Soteriou's short story, Brandy Sour) 'Soteriou's is not a historical novel, but a novel that uses history in an inventive way to explore the trauma of today' Evgenia Bogianou, I Avgi This is, quite simply, one of the most powerful books ever to come out of our island... In the powerful vignettes of Brandy Sour, we remember the dreams and struggles of our past. We rediscover our resilience, our perseverance. We see the lives of our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, sisters and brothers. And, ultimately, we find our own selves reflected on every page. Brandy Sour is the story of the people of Cyprus. The real people. The real story. -- Alix Norman * Cyprus Daily Mail * Constantia Soteriou's writing is both ambitious and elegantly economical. -- Alev Adil * TLS * Brandy Sour tells a complex story in simple, entertaining prose. -- Alev Adil Lina Protopapa's translation conveys the elegiac refrains of Soteriou's language. -- Alev Adil * TLS *