Although Aphrodite’s War fits neatly into the invasion literature category so popular with Cypriot authors it is a compelling, heart wrenching piece of storytelling which stands off the shelves. British writer Andrea Busfield spent much of her childhood in Cyprus and convincingly recreates the natural beauty of the island and the characters who populate it. This account of the lives of the rural Economidou family near Kyrenia spans 50 years to the modern day. It follows the birth of their son Loukis, tracing his faltering love affair with his best friend Praxi, and the ensuing violence of 1974 overwhelming their homeland. It switches perspective, with each brother’s journey as a soldier, an EOKA rebel and a journalist providing an insightful glimpse into the politics and history of the escalating conflict. It evocatively captures the fraternity and eventually divided communities of Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot neighbours.

Captivating and evocative…Busfield writes with a light touch…but there are also passages that can bring the reader to tears – a real testament to a powerful writer whose story will capture your hearts.

News of the World

I didn’t see Saturday’s super full moon because it was cloudy – and I forgot to look up. However, I am (partially) blaming the phenomenon for a murder most horrid committed on a neighbour’s rabbit by my dog, Blister.

Having jumped over the garden fence, she made a break for the above-mentioned neighbour’s property. By the time I ran the two streets to find her, she had disappeared – apparently, taking one of the rabbits with her.

I wasn’t aware of this at first because I was being sandblasted in German by a man with glasses. It was only when his tearful wife said in English that the rabbit might still be alive that I realised the full awfulness of what had occurred.

I sprinted back to my house and, right enough, there was Blister. With rabbit. In her mouth. Dead.

Mortified? Yes.

A minute or so later, Rabbit Dad arrived at the gate, A4-sized hard-backed notebook in hand. Naturally, he was angry and, naturally, I was obliged to take his rage on the chin. The crux of his argument appeared to be that Blister could have bitten one of his kids. Fair enough. Despite Blister having no history whatsoever of aggression towards humans, he was upset, he was angry, and he doesn’t know my dog. But then he continued…

“Do you have kids? Do you? Do you have kids?”

It was an argument so puerile it needed repeating twice. I didn’t know what to say. I was administering heart massage to a dead rabbit at the time.

As one might expect, things have calmed down since Saturday and Rabbit Dad has said he will accept 500 Euros for the trauma caused to his children. There was no sense of irony in this offer.

If I had been present, rather than dispatching my boyfriend to deal with the matter, I might have mentioned that children in Japan are traumatised; that children in Libya, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan are traumatised; that children abused by those they trust most are traumatised. In contrast, Rabbit Dad’s children are understandably, and quite rightly, upset – but this is a privileged world away from being traumatised.

Needless to say, the matter is now in the hands of his lawyers.

Born Under a Million Shadows

Beautifully written, touching and laced throughout with humour…. A stunningly assured debut novel from a writer who looks set to be a big star

The News of the World

Born Under a Million Shadows

From the first page, this beautifully told tale will capture the reader’s heart and imagination…. Powerful and moving

The Sun

Born Under a Million Shadows

Fawad’s observations and concerns about his new experiences living with English-speaking, godless foreigners are told with humor and heartbreak

One of his primary concerns is the poignant love story involving his beloved British landlady and wealthy, yet dangerous Afghan Haji Khan

Busfield tells this story through the eyes of a child, reflecting the optimism and humanity of the resilient people she encountered while she lived in Kabul, a refreshing viewpoint not conveyed in other contemporary novels about Afghanistan

School Library Journal

Born Under a Million Shadows

Readers who like to explore other cultures and current events through fiction will find here an intriguing picture of contemporary Afghanistan

Library Journal

Born Under a Million Shadows

Andrea Busfield’s lyrical novel, Born Under a Million Shadows, chronicles the life of an impish 11-year-old boy in Kabul

Marie Claire

Born Under a Million Shadows

In her debut novel [Busfield] does a bang-up job of channelling an 11-year-old boy named Fawad. Born Under a Million Shadows is set in Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. Fawad’s father and brother have been killed and his sister kidnapped by the Taliban

Fawad – ever resourceful and not above a little chicanery – makes small change by stealing from the foreigners who have flooded the city. Things might be tough for Fawad, but he’s filled with an impish optimism. . . .

There’s much love in this gentle, buoyant tale – romantic and otherwise. And to experience it through the eyes of a beguiling, mischievous little boy is sheer joy.”

Donna Marchetti, Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

Born Under a Million Shadows

In her indelible first novel, Busfield, a British journalist who has lived in Afghanistan, describes post-Taliban Kabul from the viewpoint of precocious, 11-year-old Fawad, whose impossible losses are commonplace: “My father was killed, my brothers are dead, and my sister is missing. But in Afghanistan, that’s a big ‘so what.’”

When his mother secures a job keeping house for three foreigners, Fawad moves from their impoverished relatives’ home into the Westerners’ compound

Over the following year, the foreigners begin to feel like family to Fawad, but Busfield never romanticizes the intractable challenges of cross-cultural understanding: “In many of their ways the foreigners were just like Afghans. . . . But in other ways they were just plain crazy and trying their absolute hardest to burn for all eternity. Worse than that, they all seemed so damned pleased about it.”

Fawad has a deep crush on Georgie, a beautiful NGO worker whose passionate affair with a powerful Afghan man prompts Fawad to ask the largest life questions about love, religion, friendship, and identity

Poetic, bawdy, hilarious, and achingly wise, Busfield’s debut is a love story many times over: between a man and a woman, the author and Afghanistan, and an irrepressible boy and the wild world at large

Starred Review, Booklist, Gillian Engberg