The Sunrise
1974 and Savvas, the ambitious owner of a luxury hotel in prosperous Famagusta, Cyprus, is greedy for more. Aphroditi is his gorgeous, childless wife and Markos his clever manager. Aphroditi is jealous of Markos and the trust Savvas places in him, but eventually they become lovers whilst Savvas is away supervising the building of his next project, the lavish Sunrise Hotel. Mixing commerce and love puts Markos in danger, setting up a modern Greek tragedy of greed, jealousy, love, murder, ambition, conceit, and intolerance.
Famagusta is doomed when President Makarios dies and the decades-old Turkish/Greek conflict flares up. Greek leader George Grivas secretly returns to try again to unite Cyprus with Greece while the Turks want partition. Cyprus is eventually divided, and Greek Famagusta’s 40,000 inhabitants flee, as it is sealed off by the Turkish army. Two families of the former hotel staff, one Turkish one and Greek, are barricaded at home while the Turks clear the city. Desperate for food, they creep into the deserted Sunrise Hotel and struggle for survival by looting the shops and kitchens.
After a slow start, The Sunrise reveals Hislop’s mastery of commerce, terrorism, love, family matters and even hairdressing. She melds all five into a brilliant, fast-paced novel. Her sensitivity reveals human traits of love and family care alongside the grasping greed of other characters. There is little forgiveness in The Sunrise, an outstanding modern historical novel. And Famagusta still broods behind the barbed wire.
