Books: Sunset in Cyprus

BITTER LEMONS (256 pp.) — Lawrence Durrell—Duffon ($3.50).

Antony gave the island to Cleopatra as a gift, and other conquerors would gladly have given a Cleopatra to get Cyprus. For the last 2,000 years, tidal waves of conquest have continued to sweep over the island's pebbled shores. Cyprus has been ruled by medieval Knights Templar, Venetians, Turks and British. By 1953, when Author Lawrence (Justine) Durrell (TIME, Aug. 26) arrived in Cyprus in search of a writer's low-cost retreat, the Greek Cypriots (four-fifths of the population) were scrawling their own historic handwriting on the...