Christy Lefteri: 'No one searched for these women. That didn’t shock me, that made me angry'
Christy Lefteri. Picture: Kieran Coatman
When The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri was published in 2019, it struck a chord with readers around the world, selling over a million copies. A tale of two refugees whose lives have been shattered by the interminable conflict in Syria, trying to make their way to a better life in Britain, it was inspired by Lefteri’s real-life experience volunteering in a refugee centre in Athens, as well as her own parents flight from war-torn Cyprus in the mid-1970s. The phenomenal success of the book is still something Lefteri can’t quite believe.
“It feels extraordinary. I remember when I was writing it, I didn’t even dream that would happen. I think the thing that affects me the most is if, instead of imagining a number, which is mind-blowing, I think about so many people holding it in their hand or listening to it on audio, then it’s like, oh my God, all those people connected with what I was writing and that is amazing.” Lefteri, who was born in London in 1980 to Greek Cypriot parents who moved there in 1974 during the Turkish invasion, says that readers had a strong emotional connection to the book, which reflected her own experience when she was writing it.
