Andreas Koumi, The Cypriot

As first novels go this one could not really be better. It takes on the challenge of its problematic subject with courage and determination. Koumi is able to establish and maintain a dynamic and fascinating narrative structure which alternately engages with the concerns of the islanders and of individuals within relatively contemporary British society. At no point does the novel fail to provide a thought-provoking and tactful investigation of the personal traumas cased by enforced notions of ethnicity, religious faith and romantic propriety. The prose is solid and in most places richly detailed; the characters stand on their own feet and never feel like simple authorial mouth-pieces and this helps to construct a novel that will doubtlessly have an influence on the future shape of early 20th century "post-colonial" fiction.