About the Book
The people, their history and the beauty of an island on the brink of tragedy. This is the account of a unique journey - a six-hundred-mile trek on foot around Cyprus in the last year of the island's peace. Colin Thubron intertwines myth, history and personal anecdote in a quest from which the characters and places, architecture and landscape all spring vividly to the reader's eye. 'Thubron writes very well indeed... He carries with him the talisman of erudition combined with intuition' Sunday Times 'Thubron knows the real Cypriots... He evinces a never unsympathetic observation and a respect for the incongruous that put him in the category of Kinglake and Edward Lear' Daily Telegraph 'Purchased by blistered and bleeding feet, this picture is extraordinarily detailed and vivid... An accomplished linguist and historian, his passionate concern for antiquity in all its aspects - mythological, architectural, conceptual - lends weight and warmth to every chapter' Financial Times 'Colin Thubron is in a class of his own' Scotsman 'Most memorable and full of insight' Lawrence Durrell