A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible: A heartwarming tale of love amid war

Product Information

Christy's latest novel Songbirds will be published by Manilla on 8 July. You can find all of Christy's books on the Suffolk Libraries catalogue. PDF / EPUB File Name: A_Watermelon_A_Fish_and__a__Bible_-_Christy_Lefteri.pdf, A_Watermelon_A_Fish_and__a__Bible_-_Christy_Lefteri.epub She had left her home in Sri Lanka and moved to the Mediterranean island to make money to support the daughter she left behind. But one evening, Nisha steps out of the house to go run an errand and disappears. The novel has garnered critical praise from the likes of authors such as Benjamin Zephaniah and Daljit Nagra.

Dear Ms. Lefteri, It is with the deepest respect and admiration that I write to you. The devastating story of The Beekeeper of Aleppo was so much more than a story of deep loss that war and dislocation creates. You have profoundly made the personal, universal. You have nurtured the deepest empathic sensibilities possible in your readers. Nuri and Afra are embedded in my heart, and they color my thoughts about the capacity for human suffering and recovery, as only a majestic author can do. From my heart I thank you for your art and your ability to touch the soul. She gets to learn the darker elements of life as an immigrant and the stark choices that often leave them captive, vulnerable, or worse. I’m interested in going to Greece to research the wild fires that happened in Mati a few years ago. I’m interested in learning more about the effects of climate change on communities and families. Christy’s 2019 published work would go on to become a winner of the Aspen Words Literary Prize in 2020 and also become a bestselling title in the Sunday Times. No matter what story I’m writing, whatever the circumstances are, it is the bond and the love between people, between friends, between a parent and child, a husband and a wife, that is the real heart of the story.The best bits of this book are the beginning and the end. It starts off with this really fairy-tale like sequence, full of symbolism. It's beautiful, and sad, setting you up to journey through war-torn Cyprus in 1974. Lefteri moves you through the capture of Kyrenia through several viewpoints: Maroulla's childish innocence, Adem Berker's loss and guilt, Richard's longing, Commander Serkan Demir's anger and hatred, Koki's fear. Sometimes it's too much--the core of this story feels like Koki's, the way she's caught between Greeks and Turks, an outcast to both groups as much as she is deeply tied to both. I loved the way Adem's, Richard's and Koki's stories weaved in and out of each other, I didn't care so much about Serkan (Lefteri admitted that he was a rather two-dimensional character without an arc) or what his whole confusing interaction with the baby was about, and whilst I loved the thread of the rose and the petals and the innocent fairy tale of Maroulla that both starts and ends the novel, she wasn't ultimately very important to the story. Whilst she acted as a sort-of impetus for Koki to keep moving, keep trying to survive, I kind of feel that she could have been replaced by anything (or anyone) else. I was pulled in by the title of this book, which, believe it or not, does relate to the story. Lefteri's prose is stunning. Her language shines with life and drew vibrant images to my mind when I read this book. Her descriptions compile most of the novel and they are definitely the highlight. In general, I tend to be bored with books centered around the descriptions of a particular place and time, and built up with details of the characters, and that don't really have a plot, but I wasn't. The author's style is so detailed that I could practically feel the hot summer wind and smell the egg-lemon soup. The best bits of this book are the beginning and the end. It starts off with this really fairy-tale like sequence, full of symbolism. It's beautiful, and sad, setting you up to journey through war-torn Cyprus in 1974. Lefteri moves you through the capture of Kyrenia through several viewpoints: Maroulla's childish innocence, Adem Berker's loss and guilt, Richard's longing, Commander Serkan Demir's anger and hatred, Koki's fear. Sometimes it's too much--the core of this story feels like Koki's, the way she's caught between Greeks and Turks, an outcast to both groups as much as she is deeply tied to both. I loved the way Adem's, Richard's and Koki's stories weaved in and out of each other, I didn't care so much about Serkan or what his whole confusing interaction with the baby was about, and whilst I loved the thread of the rose and the petals and the innocent fairy tale of Maroulla that both starts and ends the novel, she wasn't ultimately very important to the story. Whilst she acted as a sort-of impetus for Koki to keep moving, keep trying to survive, I kind of feel that she could have been replaced by anything (or anyone) else. There book contains accounts of violent and distressing scenes, including some of the group of women being taken off to be gang raped and returned battered and bleeding. Even so it is beautifully written, and explores whether the main characters can come to terms with their past and present. It makes you want to know more about Cyprus and its history, and to be able to recount what happened to Koki and Maroulla to the sometimes violent past of such a beautiful island and it's people. The book contains a lot of tragedy and violence. It is a sad tale of rejection and death. There is a fair amount of bad language and some blasphemy which I didn't appreciate. There is no graphic sexual detail although rape is eluded to and the after effects are obvious in the telling of the story. There is a lot of violence, it is not disturbingly graphic, just sad.

Songbirds was inspired by real life events where five domestic workers and two children went missing in Cyprus and nobody searched for them because they were foreign. The Plice specifically refused to launch an investigation and said that they were not interested in concerning themselves with the lives of foreign maids. Who were your literary heroes as you were growing up and when did you first realise that you wanted to write?The police believe she is just another runaway house help but Petra her employer thinks there is more to it. Petra’s investigations lead her to the many friends Nisha had working as nannies in the neighboring houses. The above description sums up the extent of the plot, with the addition of a few unexpected turns. It is not developed much further, but the core of the novel focuses on the descriptions of life in the village and it's inhabitants. I also enjoyed the sharp contrasts between the cultures of the people living in Cyprus to those in London. Lefteri also captures the hidden differences as well and the obvious ones in her scenery portraits. Archbishop Makarios had been something of a thorn in the side of the British in Cyprus in former years, but he was primarily a Cypriot nationalist, not a proponent of Enosis, the union of Cyprus with Greece. The 1974 war was bad for both Greek and Turkish Cypriots and few in either community had wanted it. Lefteri currently works at Brunel University, where she teaches creative writing. Previously she was a teacher of English as a Second Language and also worked in Greece volunteering for UNICEF.

Songbirds” by Christy Lefteri introduces a poacher named Yiannis. The man makes a living trapping the very small protected songbirds that make a stopover in Cyprus on the way to Europe from Africa. I killed him because I am Turkish and he was Greek. But when I looked at his face, as he looked up at me blindly, I couldn't see what separated us.” In 2010, she published her debut work “A Watermelon, a Fish, and a Bible” but it was her second novel that made her name as an author to watch.

It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army has invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to their ordinary lives. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. For one young woman, brought up without her mother and shunned by the community, the invasion brings an opportunity to, at long last, share her side of the story. To an invading soldier, it becomes a search for his one true love, lost years ago. And for a man far from the action, it brings memories of the past flooding into his mind – a woman, a child and a secret never told. A Watermelon, A Fish and a Bible is a breathtaking novel about love, loss, identity and what family really means. A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible by Christy Lefteri – eBook Details For one young woman who grew up without a mother who had always been an outcast in the community, the invasion presents a chance to share her story. It is July 1974 and on a bright, sunny morning, the Turkish army had invaded the town of Kyrenia in Cyprus. For many people, this means an end to life as they know it. But for some, it is a chance to begin living again. For Richard, growing old and grey in a dank bedsit in the centre of London, where the underground trains shake the foundations, the invasion of Cyprus stirs memories of his time as a British pilot, of a woman, a child and a secret it is becoming all too difficult to keep. Readers in Suffolk will be familiar with your novel The Beekeeper of Aleppo. How did you find Nuri's voice in the book and what was it like to write? Was there anything you nearly left out of the final version?

Book Genre: 20th Century, Cultural, Fiction, Greece, Historical, Historical Fiction, Literature, War The ending (which I can't say too much of because of spoilers? maybe?) is a beautiful execution of the classic race against time, leaving you braced in your seat with bated breath, hoping that yes, they will meet, yes, things will work out in the end, no, no, please don't miss each other. Christy Lefteri’s novel “The Beekeeper of Aleppo” is a beautiful novel about Syrian beekeeper Nuri and his artist wife Afra. They live in Aleppo, a beautiful Syrian city where they are rich in friends and family until everything comes crashing down. As Afra and Nuri travel across a landscape broken by the war, they have to confront not only their own unspeakable loss and pain but a lot of danger. The story is about a domestic worker called Nisha who has crossed oceans to give her child a future. By day she cares for Petra's daughter; at night she mothers her own little girl by the light of a phone. Nisha's lover, Yiannis, is a poacher, hunting the tiny songbirds on their way to Africa each winter. His dreams of a new life, and of marrying Nisha, are shattered when she vanishes. No one cares about the disappearance of a domestic worker, except Petra and Yiannis. As they set out to search for her, they realise how little they know about Nisha. What they uncover will change them all.

So she lives outside the town and hides from her neighbours' eyes. But, held captive with the very women who have made her life so lonely, Koki is finally able to tell them the truth. To talk of the Turkish shoemaker who came to the town and took her heart away with him when he left. Again, I feel that the reading of this book was slightly impacted by the fact that I was reading it in spurts, mainly while on various trains, and whilst really sleepy. Still, this goes to show that it wasn't particularly exciting to me, because I've powered through books in the middle of the night whilst dead-tired because I really wanted to know what happens next. At any rate, I liked it enough despite the fact that it's historical fiction and not fantasy, so *shrug*. Thinking it over, I'm not too sure if the 4-star is impacted by bias. Now that I'm writing the review, I'm wavering down to about a 3-star, so I'd say it's a tentative 3.5-star book, just because I'm not sure.