26 Aug – 06 Sep at the Kizilbaş Church Youth Centre

By Heidi Trautmann

You know the old Orthodox Church in Kizilbaş, suburb of Nicosia? It is officially used as Youth Centre and once a year end of August the Işık Bookstore organizes the Book Fair. Visiting hours are from 10 am to 1 pm and 5 pm until midnight when the night is cool.

There are books for everybody's taste at discount prices, for adults and children, novels, political and social books, books for travelers in Cyprus, history books, books written by researchers about everything which concerns Cyprus, on mining, tobacco, on women. It is always great fun to go there. The books are mostly in Turkish but there are also translations into English available.

There was and is - until Sep 6 - again a very interesting programme in the evenings; intellectuals and knowledgeable people from politics, literature, journalism and art spoke and will speak about ….the theme on the poster said JUSTICE….poor Justice hanging on a dead tree….as a bound-up book…also about ethics and art and  about minorities, refugees etc. and how the Cyprus problem will be solved  with justice or do they mean fairness?

When you read this, the fair will be over, unfortunately, but you can find Isik Bookstore in the Old City of Nicosia and experience the atmosphere of  an old Cypriot bookstore where local writers and poets regularly meet and where you find everything I mentioned above, also my book “Art and Creativity in North Cyprus”.