A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible: A heartwarming tale of love amid war

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Christy Lefteri is a historical and literary fiction author from the United Kingdom that is best known for the novel “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” which she published in 2019. It is July 1974 and on the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. Your book is regularly discussed by book groups and read in libraries by people who could never imagine being in the situation that Nuri and Afra find themselves. What is the message you would like the reader to take away with them? The novel has garnered critical praise from the likes of authors such as Benjamin Zephaniah and Daljit Nagra.

It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to their ordinary lives. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. The war destroys everything they care for and they have to flee. However, Afra has seen so many terrible things that they have to go on a perilous journey through Greece and Turkey to start a new and uncertain life in the United Kingdom.There book contains accounts of violent and distressing scenes, including some of the group of women being taken off to be gang raped and returned battered and bleeding. Even so it is beautifully written, and explores whether the main characters can come to terms with their past and present. It makes you want to know more about Cyprus and its history, and to be able to recount what happened to Koki and Maroulla to the sometimes violent past of such a beautiful island and it's people. The author does not shy away from showing the horrors of war or of community disapproval of inter-racial relationships, but most of the worst horrors take place offstage. This is an effective way of showing them without dwelling on them and of giving them impact. The focus is on the island and its people, and on living and loving through difficult circumstances. The message of that book is essentially that if there was more friendliness and integration between the different ethnic communities and less intolerance and strife, then everything in Aphrodite's garden would be lovely. This is trite, but it is also true, and the author puts across that message effectively by telling the story from each community. On the way to Europe, Nuri is comforted by knowing that his business partner and cousin Mustafa is waiting for them. He has recently established an apiary and has been training Syrian refugees on how to keep bees in Yorkshire. It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the village of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. Koki, a young villager, feared and hated by her neighbours for her startling red hair, has spent her life in shadow. But held captive in the house to which the women of Kyrenia have been brought, she can at last speak to them as an equal. She can tell them her story of a summer long ago. The young, Turkish shoe-maker who came to the village and took her heart away with him when he left. And how she has longed for him all these years and never known why he left, what took him away. Adem Berker is a Turkish soldier and for him, the invasion of his former home is an opportunity to seek out the woman he has loved for so many years. Waiting for a chance to return, his only thought has been of her. And so, by cover of darkness, he searches every house, every pathway for a glimpse of that head of flames. For Richard, growing old and grey in a dank bedsit in the centre of London, where the underground trains shake the foundations, the invasion of Cyprus stirs memories of his time as a British pilot, of a woman, a child and a secret it is becoming all too difficult to keep.

Christy Lefteri really knows how to write a book that will tug on your heart strings. She has an amazing way of coupling fiction with real and relevant social commentary on the state of the world, or the state the world has previously been in. As Afra and Nuri travel across a landscape broken by the war, they have to confront not only their own unspeakable loss and pain but a lot of danger. Christy Lefteri’s novel “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” is a beautiful novel about Syrian beekeeper Nuri and his artist wife Afra. They live in Aleppo, a beautiful Syrian city where they are rich in friends and family until everything comes crashing down. The author was born to Cyprus refugees that moved to the UK in 1974, following the invasion of the island by Turkey. Born in 1980, Lefteri was raised in the British capital London, which is where she has lived most of her life.The story is told from the point of view of three individuals, a Greek Cypriot woman with red hair, a Turkish Cypriot man now in the invading Turkish army and an Englishman formerly an RAF pilot stationed in Cyprus. These three characters are connected and we learn how through their memories and them telling their stories to others. All three are more integrated than was usual for their respective communities and have had love affair which crossed racial boundaries. For many residents, this is the end of their idyllic lives but for some, it is a chance for rebirth. urn:lcp:watermelonfishan0000left:epub:4f8faf0e-2029-4da6-b7e2-11e524bd686e Foldoutcount 0 Grant_report Arcadia #4117 Identifier watermelonfishan0000left Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t9r30n12d Invoice 1853 Isbn 1849161275 The best bits of this book are the beginning and the end. It starts off with this really fairy-tale like sequence, full of symbolism. It's beautiful, and sad, setting you up to journey through war-torn Cyprus in 1974. Lefteri moves you through the capture of Kyrenia through several viewpoints: Maroulla's childish innocence, Adem Berker's loss and guilt, Richard's longing, Commander Serkan Demir's anger and hatred, Koki's fear. Sometimes it's too much--the core of this story feels like Koki's, the way she's caught between Greeks and Turks, an outcast to both groups as much as she is deeply tied to both. I loved the way Adem's, Richard's and Koki's stories weaved in and out of each other, I didn't care so much about Serkan or what his whole confusing interaction with the baby was about, and whilst I loved the thread of the rose and the petals and the innocent fairy tale of Maroulla that both starts and ends the novel, she wasn't ultimately very important to the story. Whilst she acted as a sort-of impetus for Koki to keep moving, keep trying to survive, I kind of feel that she could have been replaced by anything (or anyone) else. She makes the reader walk in the shoes of victims and perhaps view those seeking asylum in a different way as their journeys are portrayed with great feeling.

No matter what story I’m writing, whatever the circumstances are, it is the bond and the love between people, between friends, between a parent and child, a husband and a wife, that is the real heart of the story.

It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to their ordinary lives. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. For one young woman, brought up without her mother and shunned by the community, the invasion brings an opportunity to, at long last, share her side of the story. To an invading soldier, it becomes a search for his one true love, lost years ago. And for a man far from the action, it brings memories of the past flooding into his mind – a woman, a child and a secret never told. A Watermelon, A Fish and a Bible is a breathtaking novel about love, loss, identity and what family really means. A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible by Christy Lefteri – eBook Details For one young woman who grew up without a mother who had always been an outcast in the community, the invasion presents a chance to share her story. The above description sums up the extent of the plot, with the addition of a few unexpected turns. It is not developed much further, but the core of the novel focuses on the descriptions of life in the village and it's inhabitants. I also enjoyed the sharp contrasts between the cultures of the people living in Cyprus to those in London. Lefteri also captures the hidden differences as well and the obvious ones in her scenery portraits.

On the other hand, her second novel is the story of a married couple forced to flee Syria which was inspired by real accounts of refugees recounted to her while she was volunteering for UNICEF in Athens.It is for this reason that she writes poignant and realistic depictions of families living in exile and how these can cause a lot of pain and trauma. As such, many of her novels and particularly the Beekeeper of Aleppo resonate with her sympathy for Syrian families and children. During the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, her father had been a commanding officer and left soon after the signing of the armistice. He was forced to leave as he did not believe it was safe for him and his wife to be in the country.