“IRENE AND VASSOS” (“Ειρηνου και βασοσ”)
NEW EDITIONS
An overview of the new paperback and digital editions of the well-known literary work of Christophoros Th. Palesis
This narrative poem, which can be described as the Romeo and Juliet of Cyprus, tells a dramatic story of two young villagers (Irene and Vassos) who fall passionately in love but confront insurmountable obstacles because they belong to different social classes (the boy is from a rich family and the girl from a poor family). This love undermines the social order of the village, comes into direct conflict with the boy’s parents (the main antagonists), and leads to a dramatic crisis that only gets resolved after a chain of tragic episodes. The two young lovers are pushed into social isolation but their love grows even stronger and dominates their feelings and thoughts, their actions, and their whole existence… Written in the Cypriot dialect of Greek, this poem consists of more than a thousand lines arranged in fifteen-syllable rhyming couplets. Published initially in 1922, this highly popular work was published again ten more times by the poet himself and once more posthumously by the poet’s son Antonios Chr. Palesis in 1969. This narrative poem was also adapted into film in 1981 and presented in the theater in 1989 and 2007 in Cyprus and Great Britain.
We are very proud to present a new publication that makes this Cypriot literary classic more accessible across the globe and opens a new road to Cypriot traditional poetry via modern digital technologies. This popular work by Christophoros Th. Palesis is now available in paperback, which you can have shipped to you anywhere in the world via on-demand publishing, and in digital format as an eBook and as an audiobook that you can download and read / listen to interactively on your mobile phone, tablet, desktop computer, specialized eReader device, and other digital technologies.
Both the paperback and eBook versions of the new publication include, in addition to the complete text of the original poem, an introduction to the poem, a brief biography of the poet, an overview of the poet’s work, and an extensive glossary that explains Cypriot words and expressions that may not be familiar to readers who are not versed in the Cypriot dialect of Greek. The audiobook version consists of an interactive audio recording of the poem sung by the son of the poet the same way his father sung it.
More information and a preview of these new versions of the poem are available on the following pages: