The Journey

An Israeli journalist, searching for his father’s identity, arrives in Cyprus in 1977. The information he gathers uncovers a shattering truth, and the affair seems to implicate the names of two leading figures of the Cypriot Left, one of whom had kept a secret relationship with the journalist’s Greek-Jewish mother. At the same time, what he learns of the two men’s journey to Greece in October 1948 — and their months-long adventure across Europe and Africa — casts light on the origins of the Cyprus question, just before it erupted.

In cinematic fashion the author carries the reader to the cities that mark the journey, and portrays the Greek-Cypriot rift and the confrontations with the Turks and the British. Makarios, Bishop of Kition and later Archbishop; Rauf Denktaş, then assistant public prosecutor and later leader of the Turkish Cypriots; historic figures of the Greek and Cypriot Left; liberal politicians famous in their day, leaders of the Right, scientists, artists, and officials of the colonial government and its secret services — together they compose a vivid mural of Cypriot society, illuminating the island’s path toward armed conflict, division and impasse.