The Sunrise

by Victoria Hislop (Harper 2015; first published in 2014 by Headline, a Hachette UK company)

I was looking for the Island by the same author, but couldn’t find it in my library, so I picked up this one instead. It’s the story of several Greek Cypriot families and a Turkish Cypriot family caught up in the events of 1974, when proponents of unification with Greece overthrew Archbishop Makarios and Turkey responded by invading Cyprus. The coastal resort city of Famagusta (Αμμόχωστος, [aˈmːoxostos]) was emptied out of its people, surrounded by barbed wire, and rendered a ghost city.

The main characters include Afroditi and Savvas Papacosta, who own two beachfront hotels in Famagusta: The Paradise Beach and The Sunrise, their fancy new hotel; Emine Özkan and her family: husband Halit, sons Ali, Hüseyin and Mehmet; and the Georgiou family: Irini and Vasilis, sons Markos and Christos, and Maria, her husband Panikos and their little son Vasilakis. Markos is Savvas Papcosta’s right-hand man, who is entrusted with the hotel when Savvas and Afroditi flee the city; Markos and Afroditi are engaged in a passionate affair. Emine works in The Sunrise as a hairdresser. Her friend Irini lives with her family on the same street. The friendship between the two, one Greek and the other Turkish, is perhaps unusual; their husbands refuse to meet each other.

When everyone else flees the city, the Georgious and the Özkans do not leave because in each case, one of the sons is missing (Christos, who was involved with EOKA B, the organization fighting for unification with Greece, and Ali, who of course opposed this). Initially, neither family realizes that the other has remained behind, but they find each other and eventually move in together, first in the Georgious’ home after the Özkans’ is broken into and ransacked, and later, when that is no longer possible, in The Sunrise. It is very dangerous to go out in the city; the only people who do so are Markos and Hüseyin, who go out at night to find food. But Markos has other, secret reasons to be out in the city at night, which in the end lead to tragedy.

Readers will learn a lot about the events in Cyprus which transformed the island to this day. The horrors of the invasion, the uncertainties faced by the inhabitants, the atrocities suffered by both sides, the plight of the refugees, are all depicted as the novel progresses. And because we come to know the characters, we care about what happens to them.