The Art in My Palm

Quarter-Finalist, General Fiction, 2025 BookLife Prize by Publishers WeeklyLonglisted, The Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Prize, 2026, United KingdomFinalist-Debut Fiction, The Art In My Palm, 2025 Literary Global Book Awards USAFinalist-LGBTQ Fiction, The Art In My Palm, 2025 Literary Global Book Awards USAInspired by true events and his own life, Luke Icarus Simon delivers a haunting and poetic story of survival, identity, and the transformative power of art.As the 51st anniversary of Cyprus's forced partition is marked in 2025, this timely and evocative novel sheds light on a legacy of colonisation, war, and resilience. Set in the late 1960s and 1970s between Nicosia and Sydney, The Art In My Palm is a searing, contemporary Greek tragedy.Demosthenes likes jumping from the rooftop stairs of his family's stately home in Old Nicosia believing he can fly across the sea to the Middle East to visit his father. Excelling at school, he's curious to find out why his island has been passed around by colonisers for 11,000 years. A powerful debut novel about exile, resilience, and the enduring hope of a boy determined to rise above devastation.