Skip to main content

Christy Lefteri

Biography

Christy Lefteri

Brought up in London, Christy Lefteri is the child of Cypriot refugees. She holds a PhD in creative writing from Brunel University, where she was a lecturer for many years. She is the author of THE BOOK OF FIRE, SONGBIRDS and the international bestseller THE BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO, which won the Aspen Words Literary Prize and was the runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her first novel, A WATERMELON, A FISH AND A BIBLE, was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Christy Lefteri

Books by Christy Lefteri

by Christy Lefteri - Fiction, Women's Fiction

In present-day Greece, deep in an ancient forest, lives a family: Irini, a musician, who teaches children to read and play music; her husband, Tasso, who paints pictures of the forest, his greatest muse; and Chara, their young daughter, whose name means joy. On the fateful day that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives, flames chase fleeing birds across the sky. The wildfire that will consume their home, and their lives as they know it, races toward them. Months later, as the village tries to rebuild, Irini stumbles upon the man who started the fire, a land speculator who had intended only a small, controlled burn to clear forestland to build on but instead ignited a catastrophe. He is dying, although the cause is unclear, and in her anger at all he took from them, Irini makes a split-second decision that will haunt her.

by Christy Lefteri - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Nisha works as a nanny and maid for a wealthy widow on the island of Cyprus. Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the illegal market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha. But one night, Nisha makes dinner for the family who pays her: Petra and her daughter, Aliki. Then, after she cleans the kitchen and tucks Aliki into bed, Nisha goes out on a mysterious errand and vanishes. When the police refuse to pursue the case, Petra takes on the investigation herself, a path that leads her to Nisha’s friends --- other workers in the neighborhood --- and to the darker side of a migrant’s life.

by Christy Lefteri - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Nuri is a beekeeper, and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo --- until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.