The story of a greek man from northern Cyprus, displaced by the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1976 based on the author's experience as a refugee of this crisis herself. The narrator, a well off poultry farmer before the invasion, compares his experience and that of the Greek cypriots to that of the blue whale, which he believed to have been extinct since the 1950's. Like the blue whale was coveted by man for its fat, Cyprus was for its strategic location in the eastern Mediterranean. The Turkish invasion is thus experienced as the hunting to extinction of the Greek cypriot. The narrator, having gotten back on his feet in the southern part of the island, tells stories of his neighbors and friends from his city of Kyrenia, all of whose residents were forced from their homes and replaced with Turkish settlers from Anatolia. The book is a thoughtful reflection on the experience of being displaced and caught between centuries old political and cultural conflicts.