Product Description

In the space of a generation, Cyprus - the island of Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love - has experienced an anti-colonial struggle, post-colonial chaos, internecine fighting and hatred, civil war, invasion, population displacements and physical partition. The narrative of Cyprus' recent history has created numerous attitudes and prejudices which run deep but which have never before been explored on a human level. Now for the first time Yiannis Papadakis, firmly planted in the Greek Cypriot world, sets out to discover 'The Other' - the much maligned Turks. Papadakis decided with some trepidation to travek to Constantinople (to his Greek worldview it was still Constantinople) to learn Turkish. There he discovered that actually it is Istanbul, and that Turkey is not the place of his once imagined demonology. Armed with new insights he returned to Cyprus and delved into the two communities, locked in their mutually contemptuous embrace, to explore their common humanity and to understand what has divided them. He focused on Nicosia where the people who used to live together in one neighbourhood found themselves separated by a 'Dead Zone', two armies and a UN force. His was a journey to the various sides of the Dead Zone and to the various zones of the dead, the realms of memory and history. This book is the moving, sometimes humorous and always fascinating account of that journey.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183611 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
'Packed with historical information. It also contains moving personal testimonies from the kind of ordinary people whose voices are not usually heard above the drum beating din of history. What makes it really memorable though, is its wry humour.' - Irish Times 'He [Papadakis] can also be seen as shedding new light on old wounds - and doing his compatriots an enormous (an enormously healing) favour in the process.' - Irish Times 'Papadakis combines his excellent scholarly skills and personal background to explore the issues of identity, perceptions and narratives in Cyprus... The book is virtually free of academic terminology; stylistically, it is more like a travel book. It is humorous, moving and disturbing.' - Journal of Peace Research 'This bold book could be a cornerstone not simply in the literature, but in the resolution of the Cyprus conflict.' - Global Dialogue 'A poignant account of the ways in which collective identities surface in official and unofficial historical registers... a brave attempt to reappraise the past looking for disciples in anthropology and beyond.' - Rodanthi Tzanelli, Ethnic and Racial Studies 'Papadakis' text stands out as providing a much-needed anthropological and humanist insight into a conflict on which so much has been repeatedly and derivatively published over the years.'- Cyprus Review 'If we do not develop new ways of understanding such conflict, they may well endlessly replicate themselves. Papadakis' superb study makes this point all too clear.' - Cyprus Review Canadian Journal of Sociology Online July- August 2006 'Papadakis, has written a unique book that is a pleasure to read. It should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in understanding the people of Cyprus and their recent unhappy history.' - Tozun Bahcheli. Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 9, No 3. 2006 'Remarkable'. -Christopher Connery and Vanita Seth. Ethnic and racial studies vol.29 No. 3 May 2006 Book Reviews 'The book is a poignant account of the ways in which collective identities surface in official and unofficial historical registers.' - Rodanthi Tzanelli. Journal of Peace Research Vol 42. 2005. 'A captivating book'. - Malte Pehl. Global Dialogue: Vol 7. 2005. ' The compelling tale of one man's voyage of discovery to 'the other side' is the superscript on the cover of this book, announcing at once its ambivalent location in the genres of both novel-writing and academic monograph, its highly reflexive approach, and its author's charming self-mocking humour.' -Olga Demetriou.

From the Publisher
-Highly topical in the context of Cyprus and the EU
-An approach on the Cyprus question never before attempted
-Beautifully and amusingly written

About the Author
Yiannis Papadakis is Assistant Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cyprus. He gained his PhD in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University where he became a research fellow at Churchill College. He has conducted fieldwork in Turkey, in both sides of Cyprus and in Pyla/Pile - a mixed village inside the 'Dead Zone'. His articles on ethnic conflict, nationalism and memory have been widely published.

Customer Reviews

first book I have read on Cyprus from a humanitarian angle
Forget the usual sub soviet mumbo jumbo and codified propaganda which we have become used to from the Greek and Turkish Cypriot political elites. Papadakis talks in depth to the ordinary Cypriots about the heartache and horror to which they have been through over the last 50 years.
This book is by a Cypriot who is not afraid to question his own preconceived ideas, and those of his compatriots from both sides. Papadakis lived with the "other side" for lengthy periods and this gives the book a depth that I have never encountered before on this subject. For once we have a book which is not obsessed by big power conspiracy theories and actually shines a light on the mistakes of both communities and indirectly suggests the obvious. Compromise can really only come from Cypriots themselves. If they have the courage and political will to see the other side as human beings and not merely ciphers and caricatures which each leadership has encouraged until recently then there is still hope.
This is a fascinating read, I couldn't put it down until the last page.

A highwire balancing act of true merit
Yiannis Pappadakis has written an extraordinary book in the purest sense of the word. It is as far away from the normal regional and bi-zonal nationalistic polemics on Cyprus as a brick is from a fish. This book is brave, insightful, balanced, reflective and honest. He accurately details the tragic paradoxes with empathy and compassion: it was actually the Greek Junta which precipitated the military action of 1974 although the current President constantly emphasises the essential Hellenic nature of the island (really, is that accurate?); EOKA killed more Greek Cypriots than the British forces did; TMT killed Turkish Cypriots to blame Greek Cypriots for their death; the Turkish authorities in Cyprus tried to ensure Pappadakis saw and reported only what they wanted the Greeks to read. What a depressing cycle and circle of self-obsessed nationalism and selective view of history (which is of course written by winners -- but there are no winners here.) I had started to choose some relevant quotes to illustrate this review, but frankly there are just too many: anyone with an intelligent objective interest in the history of this most complex of islands should read this book now, in order to understand the seemingly intractable local and regional political positions. I have little doubt that some will attack this book as being overly impartial and sympathetic towards the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey -- those chapters are a tour de force of political delicacy; unlike the Bishop in Cyprus who declared that those who voted for the Annan Plan would go to hell (literally `lose Heaven' if they accepted the Annan plan (no pressure.). His analysis that Cyprus is obsessively insular is only too true. I urge readers to read the on-line Cyprus newspapers: try www.cyprus-mail.com, and they will see precisely what he describes in the self-absorption of the press and its political favourites and targets of ire. The outside world does not seem to exist, and that is a tragedy. If you contemplate your navel endlessly, you will have a detailed knowledge only about yourself and care nothing for others.

More of the same please!
This is the first opportunity to hear accounts from both sides of the divide. I have just spent a year in southern Nicosia, and tried to see ALL of the island as much as I could, reading the press on both sides, you realise what a mirror image both sides are; united by customs and the majority of things, but yet divided by the few, the few that take voice. This is the first time that the reality was shown in a book and not the typical propaganda that both sides push to further their greedy agendas. By far the best book I have read about Cyprus so far, and no coincidence that it comes from someone interested in people and not history. We need more books like this.