2021 Reviewed: Damn the taboos in profile writing

Whether interviewing an ex-Eoka B leader or a Covid-19 government advisor, Theo Panayides often found himself skating around awkward topics

2021 was the year of taboo conversations. Questioning the relative severity of Covid was taboo. Wondering how much longer we were going to be ruled by decree was also taboo. Vaccines as a subject of conversation were at first only semi-taboo, but became increasingly taboo – unless your point was to laud vaccines for being safe and effective – as the year wore on. It was all a bit tense. For us profile writers, though, it was business as usual.

I interviewed 44 people for the Living section of the Sunday Mail in 2021, adding to the many I’ve done in the past – and often found myself trying to skate around a taboo conversation, a third rail to be touched at my peril. The brief is to try and give an honest glimpse into a person’s life – but of course some things are always too personal, or indiscreet, or just taboo.

Take, for instance, Kikis Constantinou, profiled in October – “The father of Ayia Napa”, to quote our eventual headline. My main interest in the man was indeed his pivotal role in creating a buzzing resort out of a forgotten fishing village (Constantinou built the Nissi Beach in the early 70s, the very first hotel in what was then the middle of nowhere) – but there was also the awkward question of his membership in far-right paramilitary group Eoka B, around the time when he was fathering Napa.

This is something more than a rumour – it’s constantly being brought up by his political opponents – and something less than an on-the-record admission. (He’s never been convicted, or officially accused, of anything.) Clearly, any profile that made no mention of Eoka B would be seen as a whitewash – but how to raise the subject without needless antagonism, or souring the tone of our conversation? A newspaper profile isn’t like a TV interview: it doesn’t exist till it’s actually published. If an interviewee feels they’ve been badgered into mentioning the unmentionable they could withdraw their consent at the last minute, wrecking the whole thing. It’s a fine line.

Did I solve this problem with Constantinou? Probably not. All I could do, in the end, was to be on the lookout for some suitable moment when the question could be put to him naturally, eliciting more or less the expected ‘No comment’ before turning back to his exploits as a hotelier. Should I have pressed harder? Hard to say. Writing a profile isn’t like asking questions of a government minister at a press conference. People invite you into their home, talk about personal stuff. At some point, you have to respect their taboos.

A variation on this quandary was the profile of Zoe Dorothea Pana in early September, Dr Pana being of course a member of the government’s coronavirus advisory team. “Nobody wanted lockdowns,” said Pana, doing her best to justify what many (including myself) consider to have been a deeply damaging policy – and it wouldn’t necessarily have been taboo to get into an argument on the many harms of lockdowns but it still seemed a little sneaky, as if springing an ambush on the pretext of asking about her life. Again, it’s about respect – but where does being respectful shade into being overly deferential? It’s a tough one.

It’s a relief to turn to the many interviews in 2021 where no such awkwardness existed. People like legendary rally driver Dimis Mavropoulos, regally majestic in his Classic Car Museum in Limassol, or young astrophysicist Savvas Constantinou, exploring “mini-Neptunes” for his PhD in Cambridge. Famous people like Paralympic gold medallist Karolina Pelendritou, with her ferocious dedication, or peripatetic movie star Julian Sands (encountered on the set of The Ghosts of Monday, back in February) who also climbs mountains and is driven by a thirst for all things “interesting”. Less-famous people like Yiannos Georgiou, who owns a kind of gourmet kebab shop and lives his (meticulously planned) life exactly as he pleases.

That, in the end, was perhaps the common thread in my favourite profiles of the year – people living life as they please, that’s to say without taboos. One example, specially chosen for Valentine’s Day, was that of Michalis Michael and Sukran Ozerdem, one of the first bicommunal married couples in Cyprus, who were not only playfully honest about their dynamic – Ozerdem used the Turkish word ‘gicik’ to describe her husband, which according to Google Translate means ‘a stinker’ – but also candid about the obstacles they faced early on. “But, if there is love, there’s a way,” she concluded simply and poignantly.

Then there was Constantinos Kalaitzis – quite a recent profile, from just a few weeks ago – a drag queen who makes TikTok videos as ‘thatfoxyfox’ and exemplifies the ultimate taboo, at least in much of the West: the question of gender, a potato so hot many prefer not to touch it, lest they be accused of transphobia. Kalaitzis isn’t actually trans but gender-fluid – and the most inspiring part of our conversation was perhaps the way he described his emotional journey, from being very shy and obscurely troubled by his ‘feminine’ side to accepting himself the way he is, warts and all. “I’m fully realised,” he affirmed, “and I know exactly what I want.” Damn the taboos, full speed ahead.