Andreas Tzionis has been playing five-a-side and writing stories for as long as I’ve known him. Although he’s very good at football (he’s crafted a name for himself as a silky deep-lying playmaker among Nicosia’s amateurs community), a couple of years ago he decided to take writing more seriously. He wrote some short stories and revisited old ones, that now make up his first book “The Old Prince and Other Stories,” which has been published by Hippasus.
The book is a collection of nine stories with plots and characters ranging from high fantasy and medieval knights to Cypriot office workers. Although seemingly unrelated, the stories offer a glimpse into the author’s view of life and provide the reader with a very modern social commentary on matters new and old, such as vanity, social media addiction, and as he says “hope and hopelessness”.
Andreas will be presenting “The Old Prince and Other Stories” during the Limassol International Book Fair next Saturday, November 18, at 7 p.m., at the Carob Mills venue.
How does it feel to have your first work published?
At first, I was excited. It was a very time-consuming process, writing, editing, finding someone to fund and publish it, and then back to editing again. Once the book was out, it felt very rewarding. So yeah, excitement is the first feeling I can think of. Pride, maybe. I don’t know. These things soon fade and you’re drawn back into your reality. It’s been a year since the book got published and I’d been writing most of those stories for a year before that. For two years before that, I was writing in Greek. It’s been a great experience so far.
What’s your relationship with literature? When did you start reading and writing?
I read a lot as a child. Before being able to read, my father would read for me. He’d even write his own short stories for me. I was particularly fond of Greek mythology, Roald Dahl and my father’s stories. By the time I was 11, I had textbooks filled with my own stories. I still have them and sometimes I read them for a laugh.
My teenage years were turbulent and my attitude towards reading and writing was negligent. I was in the army when I started feeling the literary urge again. I wrote comics with my best friend for hours on end during our guard duties. I still remember the five books that got me back on track: Camus’ Stranger, Orwell’s Animal Farm, Huxley’s Brave New World, Kundera’s Joke and Lodge’s Deaf Sentence. Every book I read since then has the date I finished it noted down, the location I finished reading it and sometimes my feelings. Books are my most prized possessions and I feel more at ease being surrounded by them.
I took up writing by myself again when I was around 25. Me and my ex-girlfriend assigned a theme to each other and had to come up with stories. We never did get to share our stories. Instead, I moved on to write other things, but I never forgot about her assignment. Maybe because of nostalgia, or simply because I thought it was a good theme, four years later I took up her assignment and today it’s almost completed. I guess I have her to thank for triggering my dormant love for writing at the time. She’d said one day I’ll be a published author.
Why do you write?
Necessity. Not in any graspable sense. Sometimes I feel it gives my life a sense of meaning. Perhaps it gives me the illusion of it being my calling. Throughout the day I can act subconsciously, almost automatically. Writing is one of the less destructive things I do which falls within this category.
The book is a compilation of short stories. Are there any themes that are consistent throughout the book?
I’d say most of these stories have an element of satire to them. I tried to make them fun. As far as an overarching theme I can identify through the book, one I’d say is the double-edged sword of hope and hopelessness.
Some common themes that I identified in a few of the stories were: vanity, hypocrisy, obsession in one’s image, as well as a critique of social media. Why did you choose to talk about these issues?
I think these issues chose me, to be honest. They’re unavoidable. Call me romantic or pessimistic but I think in many ways the world is turning into a cesspit and it might be good to talk about it, perhaps in an attempt to slow down its multifaceted decline.
What new or different would you like to see in Cyprus’ literary scene? Maybe more collaborative initiatives that offer artists the opportunity to self-publish? More literary magazines?
Collaborative initiatives are a great way for up-and-coming artists to gain some experience, confidence and exposure. It can be very productive to share ideas with others, work on them together and complement each other. Cooperating for the sake of creation. Literary magazines for me were the medium through which I started to feel myself grow as a writer. This brings me to what I would really like to see in Cyprus. As I mentioned before, for a couple of years I was writing in Greek. My first ever literary online publications were in Greek. But, the official Greek we learn at school doesn’t always express the average Greek-speaking Cypriot. We have a very special dialect here (in Cyprus) which I would like to see more writers embrace. Literary production loses out when we think and talk in one way but write in another. What I’d like to see is more writers, including myself, embracing their particularities.
Can you offer some tips for other writers who want to publish their first book?
Well, through my publishing experience, I came to the realisation that editing could well take more time than the actual writing. So edit, edit, let it sit, and edit some more. Most importantly though, immerse yourself in your writing, get into characters, read out the dialogues, change your voice. Have fun with it. Most pieces go unpublished so it’s important to enjoy the process, don’t think about the end product too much. This may sound cliché, but people get off on schadenfreude, so if the end goal is getting published then you have to believe in yourself because nobody is going to do that for you.
What’s next? Have you started working or writing something new?
There’s a couple of projects I’m working on and I’ve got a few other ideas boiling on the stove. I’m also on the lookout for someone who draws comics so if anyone out there reads this and wants a collab, give me a shout.
The “Old Prince and Other Stories” is available at Solonion, Parga, Ianos and Ellas bookstores, as well as Hippasus (online).
The author
Andreas Tzionis was born in Brussels, Belgium. He has a bachelor’s degree in Law and a master’s in International Law. He lives and works in Nicosia, Cyprus. He loves music, football and cinema.
