Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (Mass Market Paperback)

by Lawrence Durrell (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
One of a three-part series of Lawrence Durrell's writings. In this volume he explores the island of Cyprus, evoking the sun-drenched landscapes, dazzling light and vivid blue skies of the Aegean.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Faber & Faber Ltd (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571201555
• ISBN-13: 978-0571201556
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #213,692 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #3 in	Books > Travel > Europe > Cyprus
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memories of times lost, January 17, 2004

By	steve estvanik (seattle, wa USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An evocative memoir of the author's stay [1953-6] in what's now Northern Cyprus. Much of the landscape was still as he described it when we visited Belle Pais, Famagusta, Kyrenia, and Nicosia, the Tree of Idleness and other sites on our hiking trip to Cyprus in 2001. His adventures in buying and maintaining a house rival those of Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence"written many years later. The peaceful interludes in the hills are marred by foreshadowing of the political turmoil and tragedies that would engulf Cyprus in the following decades, leading to the departure of Durrell and other foreign nationals. Some of those towns and even cities remain ghost towns to this day. Once hard to find, this book has now been deservedly reissued.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars utter loveliness., December 14, 2005

By	Jamie Perin (Arizona) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I wouldn't want to spoil the thing by saying too much, but it was a very interesting read, aside from being intensely pleasant. There's a certain delicacy, about death, and strife, and the drinking of wine. Durrell is well spoken and well informed: you might think, like I did, that the story of Cyprus isn't politically relevant. But I only thought that because I'm an ignorant American, and because I had yet to read this lovely book.

5.0 out of 5 stars A PORTRAIT OF OLD CYPRUS, March 20, 2009

By	Robert Egby "Author of The Quest of the Radic... (Chaumont, upstate New York.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Lawrence (Larry) Durrell was Public Relations Officer for the British Government on the island colony of Cyprus. As a reporter I knew him well. In Bitter Lemons Larry narrates his personal observations of a way of life rapidly disappearing, the Colonial Empire. Colorful cottages, crusader castles, Byzantine abbeys, picnics with ouzo and commanderia under the olive trees, and the characters -- British, Greek and Turkish Cypriots with their sometimes lovable, sometimes negative peculiarities, but very human idiosyncracies. Larry records a wonderful tapestry of human life in a colony that died in August 1960. Bitter Lemons: A work of literary art by a craftsman in love with Aphrodite's isle.