From the sleeve:

"'I passed away on 26th April 1986, at the age of eighty-three.'

So begins Rikkat's account of her life as a calligrapher - a life which starts unpropitiously with the breaking of Atatürk's Republic away from Islamic tradition. Once the sacred ministers of Allah, calligraphers are now being marginalised and their schools closed as the Arabic language and scripts are progressively abolished in favour of modified version of the Latin alphabet. However, Rikkat finds favour with an old master, Selim, who guides her - even beyond the grave - in the art of calligraphy, over numerous tumultuous years and through Rikkat's own personal tragedies.

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."

***

Snapped this at a sale in the Academic Bookstore in Helsinki.

I had trouble getting going with the story, mostly because of the complicated language. I've lived in the UK, translated texts from English into Finnish for living and generally have no problem reading English, but this book posed somewhat of a challenge to me - lots of long, rare words and complicated sentence structures. I'm glad I persevered though as the story turned out to be beautiful - yet melancholy - and the passages about the art of calligraphy - of which I knew next to nothing before this - were glorious. And, it's not a thick book so it's worth giving a try!

***

Counts as Turkey in the Geographical Challenge.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I'll hand the book over to bookwormess at the monthly meeting in Helsinki. She chose the book from the First Sentences VBB running on the Finnish forum.

Thank you for the book! The cover is very beautiful, but I think I'll have a lot of trouble reading it. I started in the buss on my way home, but could only strugle half a page in a quite long ride. The language is REALLY difficult. And I'm not sure I'm interested in the life of a calligrapher...

We'll see, it goes in my TBR's for now.

Ok. I think this one needs to be removed from the shelf. It's really difficult to read... I bet the story is beautiful, but I just can't get into it. I hope this one will find someone more appreciative reader. :)

This book looked so interesting that I could not resist the temptation. I started reading it on the train back home. I know next to nothing about tha art of calligraphy. Soon I will know a little more I hope. Thank you for the book!

It was very interesting to learn about the art of calligraphy and about the history of Turkey. Magical realism suits this story very well. It was also interesting to read a story which is set in Istanbul even if it doesn't tell much about the Istanbul I saw one day in April 2010.
Thank you for the book!

This is my # 18 (100) in
"REDUCE MOUNT TBR 2011" Challenge arranged by Dove-i-Libri.

This is my # 15 in
"KEEP THEM MOVING 2011" Challenge arranged by Booklady331.

I gave the book to my sister-in-law. I hope she likes it.

My sister-in-law has read the book. Now she gave it back to me.

Miittiin mukaan Kulmakonditoriaan.

Mukavia lukuhetkiä!