It is 1923. Ataturk's republic breaks away from the venerable Islamic tradition and progressively abolishes the Arabic language and scripts in favour of a modified version of the Latin alphabet. Blending elements of magical realism with a vivid description of Turkey at a turning point in its history, Yasmine Ghata’s wonderfully evocative work is a classic and inspired debut novel, which has won several prizes in France. An atmospheric, sensual and poetic narrative, which also covers enormous changes and upheavals - the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of a young Turkey, the transformation of old Istanbul into a modern metropolis.