Showing results by author "Betsy Göksel - translator" in All Categories

On an orange-tinted evening in September 1905, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother in the ancient city of Smyrna. At the very same moment, a dashing Indian spy arrives in the harbour with a secret mission from the British Empire. He sails in to golden-hued spires and minarets, scents of fig and sycamore and the cries of street hawkers selling their wares. When he leaves, 17 years later, it will be to the heavy smell of kerosene and smoke as the city, and its people, are engulfed in flames.

Prinkipo Island, Turkey, 2017. In the glow of a late summer morning, family gather for the 100th birthday of the famous artist Sirin Saka. It ought to be a time of fond reminiscence, looking back on a long and fruitful artistic career, on memories spanning almost a century, but also of an era when imperial forces fought over her homeland. But the deep past is something Sirin has spent a lifetime trying to conceal. Her grandchildren, Nur and Fikret, and great grandchild do not know what Sirin is hiding, though they are intimately aware of the secret's psychological consequences.