This week in The Cyprus Files—learn about three castles on Cyprus from three different eras: Byzantine, Crusader, and Renaissance.
Each castle has an intriguing cultural or historical connection—whether it be to Assassin’s Creed, the Knights Templar, or Othello!
Check out the post here. As always, thanks for reading!
In the mid-2000s, Cyprus had its worst drought in 900 years. As global temperatures rise, the island will face a climate crisis of great magnitude.
Learn more about the climate crisis in Cyprus in this week’s edition of The Cyprus Files, featuring former Fulbright fellow Nikolas Michael on the climate group “Avli” and their vital work on the island.
Thanks for reading!
Last week, it was an honor and a joy to co-teach a writing workshop with my Fulbright colleague Janan Alexandra at the Home for Cooperation in the United Nations Buffer Zone in Nicosia, Cyprus.
Our workshop, “A True and Beautiful Story: Crafting the Lyric Biography” was organized around the concept of “lyric biography.” This genre allows for an exploration of a person’s life deeper than a conventional recounting of journalistic facts. How can we drive at a deeper truth and understanding through interviews that strike at a poetic understanding of a person’s essence?
Learn more about our initiative in the latest issue of my newsletter, The Cyprus Files. As always, thanks for reading!
How has the Russian invasion of Ukraine affected life in Cyprus? Given Russia’s long history of investment in Cyprus, the impact is substantial.
From The Cyprus Files, the sub-blog of my newsletter, here is a quick primer on the Russian-Cypriot relationship.
This week in The Usonian, a tribute to the life of Edmund Keeley, whose long literary and academic career helped create the field of Hellenic Studies at Princeton and the United States. As an alumnus of the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies who writes about the greater Hellenic world, I am proud to have been a part of the community he fostered.
Read the newsletter issue here.
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be co-teaching a one-day creative writing workshop with the extraordinary Janan Alexandra on March 26, 2022 at the Home for Cooperation in the UN Buffer Zone in Nicosia. As two writers in the Cypriot capital on Fulbrights, we are excited to share our passion for storytelling with the many communities on Cyprus.
The workshop is available to anyone in Cyprus. There is limited capacity; sign up now!
This week in The Usonian, read an interview with literary translator Lizzie Buehler on “The Disaster Tourist,” a fascinating climate thriller from Korean author Yun Ko-eun. Check out the interview featuring insight into Lizzie Buehler’s process and the themes of the novel.
As always, thanks for reading!
“Cities are, by definition, the places where people find creative solutions to the dilemma of living together.”
I’m pleased to publish one last (!) interview this year—this one with the amazingly erudite Bruce Clark, whose new book “Athens: City of Wisdom” tells the story of the fabled city all the way from antiquity to present.
Do check out the interview and the book, which might just be a perfect last-minute stocking stuffer for your friendly neighborhood history buff or philhellene. Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!
In this week’s newsletter, I discuss the deep history behind the Cyprus problem in The Cyprus Files, the limited-run newsletter series from The Usonian. This is the second post in “The Two Nicosias” series; you can read the first post here. Thanks for reading about this important topic.
As the pandemic resurges to the top of the news, learn about how the situation is being handled in Cyprus, in the latest post in my newsletter series, The Cyprus Files.
Stay safe out there. Thanks for reading.
Harrison Blackman 