Coveted by a succession of foreign powers, Cyprus has been occupied by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, British, and the Turks, all of whom left their mark on this large island at the east end of the Mediterranean. Poet and diplomat Joachim Sartorius lived there before and after the 1974 partition of Greek and Turkish Cyprus, and here he evokes the island's natural beauty, its distinct culture, and such locales as the ruins of Salamis, the Abbey of Bellapais, the fortified harbor of Kyrenia, and Famagusta, the setting for Shakespeare's Othello.