Author says missing persons a ‘borderline issue’ for literature

Missing persons are a borderline issue for Cypriot literature, author Hari N Spanou said on Sunday after her novel The Outpost received a special mention from the pan-European committee for European Literature Prize.

Referring to this honorary distinction, Spanou told the Cyprus News Agency (CNA) that she felt “happy and a little surprised”, because she did not expect such an impact for her novel in Europe.

Spanou said it was not easy for her to deal with the issue of missing persons, which remains an open wound for Cyprus. She explained it was something she hadn’t decided beforehand, originally intending to deal with the first phase of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. “My readings before writing the novel revolved around this theme,” she said. “The missing are a borderline issue for Cypriot literature”.

As a humanitarian issue and a war crime, the issue of missing persons is complex and does not mainly concern those who have disappeared, but how it affects people today, Spanou said. The Outpost focuses on the ignorance of the living about what happened then.

On a personal level, Spanou said writing the book was the trigger to search for the story of a cousin of her father, who is missing, and to look for further information.

“These stories are still shocking,” she said “real reconciliation cannot be built if it is based on lies and if real justice is not delivered,”

Spanou said she has been writing since she was a child. “For the last 20-25 years, writing has been for me a way of understanding, a way of observing and reflecting on the human condition,” she concluded.