From the internationally bestselling author of Serenade for Nadia, a powerful story of love and faith amidst the atrocities committed by ISIS against the Yazidi people. "Mercy is not an ointment for cruelty."Disquiet transports the reader to the contemporary Middle East through the stories of Meleknaz, a Yazidi Syrian refugee, and Hussein, a young man from the Turkish city of Mardin near the Syrian border. Passionate about helping others, Hussein begins visiting a refugee camp to tend to the poor and sick streaming into Turkey by the thousands, fleeing ISIS. There, he falls in love with Meleknaz—whom his disapproving family will call "the devil" who seduced him—and their relationship sets further tragedy in motion.A nuanced meditation on the nature of being human and an empathetic, probing look at the past and present reality of these lands of the Mesopotamian heritage, Disquiet gives a voice to the...

In this humane, affecting tale of a Turkish couple who lose their child and find another, the internationally bestselling author of Disquiet explores the ethical questions surrounding immigration.Fisherman Mustafa and his wife, Mesude, are devastated with grief for their son Deniz, who was lost at sea at seven years old. One day, Mustafa discovers the bodies of a woman and man in the water, likely refugees from Syria, Pakistan, or Afghanistan drowned as they attempted to reach Greece. Nearby, he also finds a baby boy, tied to a small inflatable boat and miraculously alive. Mustafa and Mesude at first welcome the child as a precious gift, a second Deniz, but when a woman appears, claiming to be his mother, they must make a painful decision.    Through their heart-wrenching story, Zülfü Livaneli sensitively evokes the struggles of migrants seeking a safer life in unknown, often hostile lands. In the process, he elucidates the...

A literary tour-de-force, this vivid account of an infamous Ottoman sultan’s life in exile is also a powerful indictment of the hypocrisies of the West, from the internationally bestselling author of Disquiet.Abdülhamid II ruled the Ottoman Empire for thirty-three years, from 1876 to 1909, when he was deposed following the Young Turk Revolution and sent into exile in Thessaloniki. Now, more than a century after that fateful night of April 27, Zülfü Livaneli brings to life the fascinating later days of the overthrown sultan, who precipitated the empire’s collapse.Based on the memoirs of Atıf Hüseyin Bey, personal physician to Abdülhamid and his entourage in exile, this vibrant historical novel explores the nature of power while painting a nuanced psychological portrait of the man who oversaw progressive reforms yet became known as the “Red Sultan” for the Armenian massacres during his reign.

In this heartbreaking Turkish novel based on the real-life sinking of a refugee ship during World War II, an elderly professor leaves America to revisit the city where he last saw his beloved wife. Istanbul, 1999. Maya Duran is a single mother struggling to balance a demanding job at Istanbul University with the challenges of raising a teenage son. Her worries increase when she is tasked with looking after the enigmatic Maximilian Wagner, an elderly German-born Harvard professor visiting the city at the university's invitation. Although he is distant at first, Maya gradually learns of the tragic circumstances that brought him to Istanbul sixty years before, and the dark realities that continue to haunt him. Inspired by the 1942 Struma disaster, in which nearly 800 Jewish refugees perished after the ship carrying them to Palestine was torpedoed off the coast of Turkey, Serenade for Nadia is both a poignant love story and a gripping testament to...

From the internationally bestselling author of Disquiet, a brilliant political allegory that vividly illustrates how capitalism and authoritarianism harm us and the environment.Having failed to hold onto power after an ironfisted first term, the former President moves to a secluded island and decides to rid it of what he sees as its “anarchic” components. The island, described by its close-knit community as a utopia, the last peaceful resort for humankind, morphs into dystopia when the President, in the hope of bringing order to island life, begins to act more and more like a dictator. The first ones to revolt against him are the seagulls.    Originally written in 2008 as a condemnation of the authoritarian Turkish regime, The Last Island has only grown more relevant, foreshadowing the events and aftermath of Istanbul’s bloody Gezi Park/Taksim Square political protests of 2013, as well as the protest...

Evicted from her Istanbul mansion, an elderly aristocrat forms surprising new connections across class and culture. A colorful, nuanced novel about old and new money, the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, from the internationally bestselling author of Disquiet.The last living member of a great Ottoman family, the refined yet sheltered Leyla finds herself homeless and vulnerable when her house is sold by the bank to a business tycoon and his ambitious wife. Forced out of this historic mansion on the bank of the Bosphorus, Leyla is rescued and taken in by Yusuf, the son of her family’s former gardener who has become a journalist. She follows him to a modern, cosmopolitan district of Istanbul where she discovers a world of artists and outcasts alongside Yusuf’s partner, Roxy, real name Rukiye, a hip-hop singer. Despite initial hostility, a real friendship gradually develops between these two very different women.When Leyla’s former home is...