Daughters of Cyprus: Women, Contemporary Romance Fiction, and 1974

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Published: Apr 12, 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/syn.16241
Keywords:
British Anglophone romance fiction Cyprus nationalism women's literature Christy Lefteri Victoria Hislop
Jodie Matthews
University of Huddersfield
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8876-4264
Abstract

The article considers twenty-first-century Anglophone romance representations of women set during the events of 1974 in Cyprus. It highlights the creative and political opportunities and ethical challenges of representing the Cyprus Problem in this genre. In representing a gap between the “desires of the feminine” and the motivating forces of ethno-nationalism, the novels remap women’s experience left out of the patriarchal assertions of war. While the novels reinscribe many of the discourses that normalise women’s absences from processes of official reconciliation, they might be seen as drawing popular attention to the issues at stake when considering women and war in Cyprus.

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Author Biography
Jodie Matthews, University of Huddersfield
Jodie Matthews is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Huddersfield. Her research interests include race, gender, the movement of people, and relationships between history, heritage, and literature. 
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