Situating Cypriot Anglophone Literature

This paper situates Cypriot Anglophone literature in relation to local and international literary categories. Discussing Cypriot Anglophone literature, it draws on Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘minor’ literature that minorities construct within major languages. Cypriot Anglophone literature expresses itself in ways characteristic of ‘minor’ literature because it explores deterritorialisation with regard both to local cultural practices and the island’s English literary legacy. While official nationalist discourses on the island marginalise discourses that question nostalgia for ethnic purity and sexual heteronormativity, Cypriot Anglophone literature re-imagines communities beyond ethnic lines and across heteronormal sexual boundaries, enacting an experimental cosmopolitan aesthetic.