Nicosia Beyond Barriers: Voices from a Divided City - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 086356674X ISBN 13: 9780863566745

Publisher: Saqi Books, 2020

Synopsis

Cyprus’ capital Nicosia has been split by a militarized border for decades. In this collection, writers from all sides of the divide re-imagine the past, present and future of their city. Here, Cypriot-Greeks coexist alongside Cypriot-Turks, the north with the south, town with countryside, dominant voices with the marginalized. This is a city of endless possibilities – a place where an anthropologist from London and a talkative Marxist are hunted by a gunman in the Forbidden zone; where a romance between two aspiring Tango dancers falls victim to Nicosia’s time difference; and where an artist finds his workplace on a rooftop, where he paints a horizon disturbed only by birds. Together, these writers journey beyond the beaten track creating a complete picture of Nicosia, the world’s last divided capital city, that defies barriers of all kinds.

About this title

About the Author

Alev Adil is a performance artist-poet who has appeared at the Tate Britain, British Museum and in countless international locations, from Azerbaijan to Finland. Her poetry has been translated into eight languages. Adil is also a literary critic for The Times Literary Supplement, UK. Aydin Mehmet Ali has worked as an arts and education adviser to various bodies, including the London Mayor and Local Education Authorities. Her latest publication is Forbidden Zones: Short Stories & Others. She is the founder of Literary Agency Cyprus (LAC). Bahriye Kemal is a research associate and lecturer at the Centre for Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Her research engages with Cypriot literary and cultural studies, postcolonial partition discourse, Ottoman and British imperialism, and spatial theory. Kemal is an active member of Literary Agency Cyprus, Kent Refugee Help, Seenaryo and Women Now. Maria Petrides is an independent writer, editor and translator. She has been a writer in residence in NYC, Nicosia, Istanbul, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro, and Geneva. She is the translator of Wow (Patakis 2016) and To Teach the Journey (Saita 2016), and the author of A Book of Small Things (2016) and editor of Semiotics (Cambridge Scholars, 2017).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Language of the Dead Zone Yiannis Papadakis A line ran through walled Nicosia in medieval maps; another through contemporary ones. The two lines were almost identical, dividing the city along an east-west axis. The line crossing the medieval city was a river. Later through human effort it became a long bridge; later still, through more human toil, it was to turn into a chasm, a dangerous no man’s land. It still remains a site of division and contact: the paradox of borders. The river was called by various names: proper and improper, official ones appearing on maps and unofficial ones that people used, clean and dirty, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot. The proper name Greek Cypriots used was Pedieos (from pediada, meaning plane) but it was colloquially called Pithkias. Most Greek Cypriots knew it that way, and some Turkish Cypriots too. Among Turkish Cypriots it was also called Kanli Dere, meaning ‘Bloody Torrent’. They also called it Chirkefli Dere (‘Foul Torrent’), while Greek Cypriots used an even stronger name, Kotsirkas (‘Turd-like’). It has lived up to all its names. The river flowed through the city walls until 1567, when the Venetians diverted its course for strategic reasons. During the Ottoman period, the old riverbed running through the walled city was left open. The Ottoman administrative centre lay north of the empty riverbed, with the Orthodox one on the south. Powerful Muslim and Christian families congregated around the two administrative centres, on either side of the riverbed. It was during these times that the river acquired the Turkish name Kanli Dere (‘Bloody Torrent’), on account of the red hue of its water, on the occasions when it still flowed. Later, it took on the other two dirtier names, one in Turkish and the other in Greek, due to the refuse it carried along. By that time, it only followed the course through Nicosia occasionally, when rains were heavy. When the British took over in 1878, the old riverbed was gradually covered up for hygiene reasons and a road was paved above it, effectively serving the purpose of a long bridge over the riverbed. This road was called Hermes Street. It became the major commercial axis of the city, bringing people of different groups together for trade. Hermes was the ancient Greek god of traders, and appropriately, he is also associated with Hades and the Kingdom of the Dead, the ancient Greeks’ own Zone of the Dead. One of Hermes’s epithets is Psychopompos (‘the bearer of souls to Hades’), for he could cross the most difficult boundaries, including the one between the living and the dead. After 1963, the Green Line emerged along Hermes Street as the Dead Zone was born, first drawn by a British officer in green. Hermes Street became a savagely fought-over boundary, its stones drenched in blood. It was not long before the Dead Zone of Hermes Street acquired its own Cerberus. Cerberus Street lay at the edge of the Tahtakallas district. Before the area’s Turkish Cypriot inhabitants abandoned Tahtakale in 1964, the street had a Turkish name, Chinar Sokak, or ‘Plane Tree Street’. It was changed by Greek Cypriots. A few years after 1974, this river-bridge returned to its old ways. The old underground riverbed became the main artery of the jointly administered sewerage system. It became the city’s main carrier of dirt and a site of underground cooperation. On the ground a site of bloodshed and danger: underground a project of mutual benefit where the two sides came together in excrement. Later, the Dead Zone became a site of underground cooperation above ground also. The Leda Palace Hotel, which lay just outside the old city walls, next to the riverbed, was the only point of contact and communication between the two sides. During the early 1990s, the Ledra Palace, which was managed by the UN, was the only safe site where people from opposing ends of Cyprus could meet. Initially, the meetings took place quietly because those who participated were branded as traitors on both sides. Gradually, the meetings became more common, as the UN, various embassies, and other organizations actively encouraged them.

Edition details

• Publisher: Saqi Books
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 086356674X
• ISBN 13: 9780863566745
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Adil Alev, Ali Aydin Mehmet, Kemal Bahriye, Petrides Maria