Katselli's work frequently drew on her experience of displacement from her home region of Kyrenia after the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, including in her widely translated 1978 novel Galazia falaina.
[3][4][5] After she finished high school in the late 1950s, she joined the ranks of EOKA, a Greek Cypriot nationalist guerrilla organization that opposed British rule of the island.
[5][6] In 1974, after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Katselli left her home in the newly occupied territory, settling first in Limassol and eventually in Nicosia.
[5] After she left Kyrenia the following year, the Theatrical Organization of Cyprus in Nicosia staged several of her plays, including Xeniteia and I treli giagia.
[1] In 2017, her book Prosfugas ston topo mou was published in English translation by Armida Publications as Kyrenia's Legend: The Life and Time of Costas Catsellis.