Brandy Sour

The Winner of the 2023 Cypriot National Book Prize When it was built in the 1950s, nothing symbolised Cyprus entering the modern world like the Ledra Palace Hotel. In Constantia Soteriou's jewel of a novella, the ambitions and shortcomings of the island's turbulent twentieth century are played out by its occupants. Among them we meet the king in exile who needs to drown his sorrows with a drink disguised to look like tea; the porter who, among the English roses of the hotel's gardens, secretly plants a rose from his village to make his rosebud infusions; the UN officer who drinks lemonade to deal with the heat and the lies; and the cleaning lady who always carries her holy water with her. They are reluctant actors in history, evocatively captured in this moving, personal, and highly original portrait of civil strife and division.

CONSTANTIA SOTERIOU was born in Nicosia in 1975. Her novels Aishe Goes on Vacation and Voices Made of Soil were shortlisted for the Greek and Cypriot National Book Awards. Her short story, 'Death Customs', was the winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her short stories have been translated into English, Italian, Danish, Turkish, Serbian, and Ukrainian, and appeared on BBC Radio 4 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. LINA PROTOPAPA is a translator and literary critic based in Nicosia, Cyprus. Her translation of Constantia Soteriou's 'Death Customs' from the Greek received the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize while her translation of Nikolas Kyriakou's 'The Debt' was shortlisted for the same prize in 2020. Her work has appeared in Granta, adda, Fractal, Hartis Magazine, and on BBC Radio 4.