Bitter Lemons is the product of Lawrence Durrell's final sojourn in the eastern Mediterranean, an eventful three years (1953-1956) spent on Cyprus. Although the island lies within sight of the southern coast of Asia Minor, its small Turkish population was and continues to be outnumbered by a large Greek majority. At one time or another part of the Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, and Ottoman empires, Cyprus had been a British territory since 1878.
Durrell had been employed by the British Council in Argentina and by the Foreign Office in Yugoslavia, but had found both countries stultifying. Cyprus promised a return to the passionate and vital Mediterranean world he had earlier experienced in Corfu and in Rhodes. It a…
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