Chypre

Through playful banter over coffee in an Ottoman courtyard in the divided capital of Cyprus, the author and her group of friends from both sides of the divide, share their moving, funny and harrowing experiences of life on this Mediterranean island, taking in an anticolonial struggle, internecine fighting, war, partition and endless, ineffective peace negotiations, in what has become known as ‘the Cyprus problem’. ? They are the Traitors’ Club, traitors because they are friends, because they don’t want to colour themselves as either Greek or Turkish, but as Cypriots, and because they have a goal that the rest of their compatriots don’t seem to share – to live together as one people.