Ghost Flight: Lindy Book Club Greece Discussion
In conversation with Giannis Alexiadis, 27 August 2025
Interviewee: Eva Asprakis
Interviewer: Giannis Alexiadis
Date of Interview: 27 August 2025
Location of Interview: Online
Giannis: What inspired you to write Ghost Flight, and how did the real-life Helios Airways Flight 522 tragedy shape the novel’s story or emotional core?
Eva: At the time of the tragedy, my parents and I had been in Cyprus visiting family and were due to fly back to London the following day, with Helios Airways. The fear expressed by friends and relatives before we boarded that flight stuck with me – I was a child, very sensitive to alarm like that – and so I think it was inevitable that it would influence my work. The tragedy shaped Ghost Flight’s emotional core, I think, by giving me as the writer a grim sense of inevitability about where my characters would meet their ends, no matter the beginnings or middles that I wrote for them. Maybe as a result, there is a sense of inverted or preliminary grief in the novel, as well as some hope. The knowledge that life is finite can be as liberating as it is terrifying, and I think the characters’ stories reflect that.
Giannis: The novel explores timeless themes like love, loss, and forgiveness. Which theme was most personal to you while writing, and how did it evolve during the process?
Eva: It’s hard for me to disentangle the themes of love, loss and forgiveness enough to say which one felt most personal to me while writing. Because, aren’t our experiences of them all interlinked? Without having loved, we would feel no loss. Without having lost, we would have nothing to forgive. Without having forgiven, we would be closed off to love. It’s impossible to isolate any one of those emotional events from the others, without stripping it of the context that gives it significance. For that reason, I would say that the themes of love, loss and forgiveness felt equally important to me, personally, while I was writing Ghost Flight. And if there was any evolution, it was probably in my understanding of the ways in which they all feed into one another.
Giannis: The relationships between Aristos, Agathi, Petros, and Melina drive Ghost Flight. Which character’s journey was the most challenging to write, and why?
Eva: For me, the story of Ghost Flight begins with two questions. Petros and Melina have been together since they were teenagers and struggle with their respective paths not taken, while Aristos and Wendy met several years older and must contend with the longer, more complex histories that they have each accumulated. Which relationship dynamic presents tougher challenges? How does that most central dynamic, and the way it makes each character feel, impact upon all their relationships? Drawing on my personal understanding to answer those questions was bittersweet, and made every part of the book challenging to write in its own way. But, as a child of divorce and someone who grew up with sets of extended family from three different cultures, I'd been adapting my voice to varied surroundings for a lifetime. By viewing each of Ghost Flight’s characters as just another ‘environment’, I was able to do a similar thing on the page and confront the challenges as they came.
Giannis: You’ve emphasized telling human stories over political agendas. How did you balance the personal struggles of your characters with the broader context of Cyprus’s post-conflict changes?
Eva: I don't believe it’s a writer's job to give explicit lessons, personally or politically, but do hope there is enough to Ghost Flight that readers can take their own meanings from its characters’ journeys and Cypriot backdrop. The moral and emotional questions that we ask of all stories are formed from our personal experiences, where we have come from and where we are when we encounter them. As it’s told from four different perspectives, Ghost Flight should feel open to this kind of interpretation, and demonstrate that whatever our choices, they can far outlive us as individuals. Whether in post-conflict Cyprus or elsewhere – and whether we are conscious of it or not – we are all balancing our personal struggles with our broader context, continuously.
Giannis: Cyprus in 2005, with its EU entry and Annan Plan vote, forms a vivid backdrop. How did you decide which historical elements to weave into Ghost Flight to enhance its themes?
Eva: Ghost Flight is set during a period of real change in Cyprus. Between 2003 and 2005, the island opened its first crossing point between north and south, joined the European Union, and held a vote on the Annan Plan for reunification. In many ways, it looked like a time of beginnings. Then, in absolute contrast, we had the Helios Airways Flight 522 tragedy, which brought an end to so many lives. When writing historical fiction – even very recent historical fiction – it can enrich a story to reference events that illustrate the social climate of the time. I find Cyprus a profound setting for this, because there is so much about its varied landscape, tradition, conflict, division, opening and closing borders, starting and stopping settlement talks, that mirrors human experience and interaction. Of course, much of that is tragic for the country. But for my characters – as for myself and many others I know – it also provides a level of comfort. Even when the protagonists in Ghost Flight feel lost, there is a sense that within Cyprus, they’re not alone.
Giannis: As a Cypriot author, how did you approach commemorating the Helios tragedy in a way that honored its real-world impact while serving the fictional story?
Eva: Given Cyprus’s very complex history with things like colonialism and conflict, and its ongoing politics around things like the divide and missing persons, any story that’s set here should be handled with care. There are so many tragedies and injustices within living memory, which will make sensitive reading material. I’ve tried to approach that, across my books, by writing with a focus on people and letting the politics be present in the background. In that regard, although very recent, the Helios Airways Flight 522 tragedy didn’t feel like entirely new territory to me as a writer. I knew that I needed to be well-researched and respectful, to the best of my ability.
Giannis: Your novel captures Cyprus’s post-conflict identity. What do you hope readers, especially those unfamiliar with Cyprus, take away about its culture and history?
Eva: Ghost Flight is not a book with an agenda. Although the story touches on elements of the Cyprus Problem, including the conflict in 1974 and the ongoing search for missing persons, it’s interested in the human sides of those elements, rather than the political ones. My hope is that readers will see, through the multiple perspectives Ghost Flight explores, that there is no clear ‘right or wrong’ stance on any of these issues. There are just our experiences, and the ways that they shape us. I believe this is true universally, of any country or community trying to reconcile with its past and move forward, and can only hope that readers take this more nuanced and empathetic outlook into their future discussions of Cyprus.
Giannis: The Lindy Book Club loves “Lindy” stories with timeless resonance. What makes Ghost Flight a story you think will endure, and how does it connect to classic or universal narratives?
Eva: I think all stories that are about the human condition, the human experience – character- rather than plot-driven narratives – can be timeless. As we’ve discussed, Ghost Flight explores themes like love, loss, and forgiveness, which are universal. And as James Baldwin said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” It’s that feeling of being ‘seen’ by a book or an author, emotionally, that stays with us. So, if Ghost Flight makes its readers feel seen, then as far as I’m concerned, it’s doing its job.
Giannis: If you could recommend one book or author that influenced Ghost Flight or complements its themes, what would it be, and why?
Eva: The toughest question of all! And even tougher because each of the four parts in Ghost Flight reads quite differently. If I could suggest a book to complement each part on its themes, I would say The Promise by Damon Galgut for Aristos’s part, Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers for Melina’s part, Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors for Wendy’s part, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin for Petros’s part.