Colonial and Postcolonial Cyprus / Progress in Mathematics (PDF)

'The colonial history of Cyprus - a partitioned island in a partitioned world - is as often misunderstood as it is forgotten. Yet, as this timely book shows, this fraught history has much to offer postcolonial studies, not least as a catalyst for the 'transportal' literature with which contemporary Cypriot writers, amidst continuing geopolitical pressures, seek imaginative openings to a more fully decolonized, less ideologically polarized world.' - Professor Graham Huggan, University of Leeds, UK

This book analyses colonial and postcolonial writing about Cyprus, before and after its independence from the British Empire in 1960. These works are understood as 'transportal literatures' in that they navigate the liminal and layered forms of colonialism which impede the freedom of the island, including the residues of British imperialism, the impact of Greek and Turkish nationalisms, and the ethnolinguistic border between north and south. This study puts pressure on the postcolonial discipline by evaluating the unique hegemonic relationship Cyprus has with three metropolitan centres, not one. The print languages associated with each centre (English, Greek, and Turkish) are complicit in neo-colonial activity. Contemporary Cypriot writers address this in order to resist sectarian division and grapple with their deferred postcoloniality.