'Ghost Flight': award winning novelist Eva Asprakis' novel explores grief and connection in 2005 Cyprus

In the midst of fragmented Larnaca in 2005, award winning novelist Eva Asprakis' Ghost Flight takes place; a tale of love, loss and identity.

Set before the impending Helios 522 flight disaster that killed 121 people, the storyline is immersed with the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and ongoing British military presence.

Ghost Flight follows two couples who are also friends, trying to piece their relationships back together after one character's long awaited return to Cyprus.

The novel follows these characters as they try to reconcile their personal and political pasts with the lives they currently live, and the futures they may or may not want to have.

With the first crossing point between North and South Cyprus opening in April 2003 and Cyprus joining the EU in May 2004 occurring in the novel's historical world, Eva mentions that including characters' family history was an important part of informing the narrative.

"I wanted to weave this into the story in a way that felt very natural. In the same way that when you live here, when you have  family here, you meet people and you hear their stories and their parents and grandparents stories and it's just a part of life."

Written as a quartet, Ghost Flight contains four perspectives. Each characters' section is divided by an Accident Investigation Report of a real aviation incident from the time.

"Previously, I've gone for a lot of depth within one character's mind and an emotional sphere. With this one I was thinking; can we do that with four different people and make them equally as compelling?"

One of the perspectives is Aristos, who had left Cyprus suddenly for the UK upon discovering shocking family history from 1974 and returns when he learns his father is sick. When Aristos returns, he learns his high-school sweetheart Agathi is still hung up on him.

What follows is Aristos' British girlfriend Wendy's perspective, who travels with Aristos to Cyprus.

"His British girlfriend brings some mixed responses from Greek-Cypriots in the novel because of the British history, and her lack of understanding around that", Eva explains.

The other two characters' perspectives follow couple Petros and Melina, who grew up in Cyprus as refugees in a village that evolved from a refugee settlement in one of the British territories.

The novel ends with an epilogue from Agathi. With an anticipated climax, the Helios flight disaster occurs at the end of Ghost Flight.

" It's almost an inverted sense of of grief for the characters." Eva tells me. "They have this anticipation, and flights in the novel symbolise this emotional pull of loss and renewal".

With Eva growing up in London, Eva tells me her previous novels Thirty-Eight Days of Rain and Love and Only Water tended to reflect her lived experiences. Reflecting on Eva's adoptive father being Greek-Cypriot and living in Nicosia, Eva wanted to connect to that part of her identity in Ghost Flight.

"I did want to try doing something that felt a little further removed from my other novels. Although, I do see parts of my emotional truths within all of the characters."

Eva's research for historical context consisted of having conversations with locals, drawing deeply from the voices of those who lived her story.

"I love getting a variety of accounts of what people remember. You get facts in research, but when you’re writing emotionally, you need truths just as much."

"I asked older relatives and their friends, specifically from the places where I set parts of the story. I just had conversations with them."

"So, what I was trying to do with the four perspectives in the novel was show how our personal experiences shape our views, whether they're political or moral. It's not to say that one perspective is right or wrong. It's more the demonstration of how your childhood, your family background and who you've  come into contact with from different places is going to shape your view as you move forward."

"I'm hoping that 'Ghost Flight' will show a variety of different perspectives that may already be familiar."

'Ghost Flight's' context is incredibly resonant amongst the volatility of Cyprus today, with a constant UK presence looming with military bases in Akrotiri and Dhekelia and the passing of the anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on the 20th of July, 1974.

With Greek-Cypriot history still haunting the diaspora, Eva hopes Ghost Flight resonates with her audience.

"I feel like it would be really interesting for English speaking Greek-Cypriot readers to see their historical identity be displayed in a narrative. I'm sure there will be a lot of familiarity and thinking that the characters really resonate with them"

"I really hope readers can find something that makes them feel, in whichever way that is."

You can purchase Ghost Flight on Amazon, Booktopia and The Nile. To follow Eva's work, check out her website and her Substack.