island of Cyprus, from ancient times to the present day. This sprawling, evocative and poetic book begins with the legend of the cyclops and the storytelling at the heart of the Mediterranean culture. Christofi travels to salt lakes, mosques and the eerie towns deserted at the start of the 1974 war. He retells the particularly bloody history of Cyprus during the twentieth century and considers his own identity as traveler and returner, as Odysseus was. Written in the same sensitive, witty and beautifully rendered prose as his last book Dostoevsky in Love , with a novelist's flair and eye for detail, Cypria combines the political, cultural and geographical history of Cyprus with reflections on time, place and belonging.