Inspired by Jeffery Eugenides Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Middlesex, and set in the ancient city of Smyrna, The Silence of Scheherazade by Defne Suman (releasing September 19 from Head of Zeus) follows the intertwining fates of four families as their peaceful city is ripped apart by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Birth, death, romance and grief are all to come as these peaceful, cosmopolitan streets are used as bargaining chips in the wake of the First World War. Told through the intertwining fates of a Levantine, a Greek, a Turkish and an Armenian family, this unforgettable novel reveals a city, and a culture, now lost to time.

Excerpt

Before the Leather Briefcase

Edith was reading the newspaper when her mother entered the dining room in her swirling pearl-coloured dressing gown.

It was one of those rare days in Bournabat when the sun was nowhere to be seen. The sky had darkened and forbidding rumbles could be heard from the hills. The wind was equally angry, taking its fury out on the thin, bare branches of the apricot and sour-cherry trees in front of the window.

In defiance of the storm outside, the Lamarck dining room smelled of toasted bread and wood smoke. Butler Mustafa had lit the yellow enamel stove in the corner after morning prayers and one of the maids had placed a record on the gramophone – a Mendelssohn sonata for violin and piano. Juliette required that music be playing in the house when she woke. She had no patience left for the silence which had been mandated following her husband’s death. She had purchased gramophones for each of the downstairs rooms as well as one for her bedroom.

Edith’s gaze, lifted from her newspaper, slipped by her mother in the doorway and focused on the oil portrait of her father hanging on the wall. Her father used to say that introverted people were most at peace in wintertime. Just as the shape of a tree became apparent once the leaves, blossom and fruit had fallen, so could the depths of a person’s soul be revealed in winter’s silence. What a shame that winter was so short in this city whose residents lived their lives outdoors or in front of open windows. She remembered with nostalgia the long, howling, winter nights at the convent school in Paris, when the girls would sit together around the huge fireplace in the library, reading books. The convent school was no more than a dream now. The classmates alongside whom she had sat, all in a row, leaning on their elbows, had graduated last spring. She had not been among them.

Sighing, she again buried her head in the newspaper. It reported that the Comédie Française would be performing in Smyrna. The Consul had spoken in person to Jules Claretie, the director of the world’s oldest and greatest theatre company, and had obtained a promise that they would stage a production at the Sporting Club the following year. La Réforme newspaper had made this a headline story to emphasize the pre-eminence of French culture among the elite of the city.

‘Bonjour, ma chérie.’ Juliette leaned over to kiss her daughter’s right cheek, glanced at the newspaper over her shoulder, and then asked in a vivacious voice, ‘Did you sleep well?’

Edith nodded without raising her head. There had been a strong earthquake in the capital of Jamaica. The streets of Kingston were filled with the debris of ruined buildings and people with terrified eyes. She peered intently at the paper so as to see the black and white photographs more clearly.

‘Just look at the weather – how dark it has become! It is as if not clouds but threatening armies are approaching. I declare I am in distress this morning.’ Juliette took her place at the table and placed a smile upon her face, which looked naked without its make-up. ‘Have you seen your brothers or had they already left when you got up? Where are Gertrude and Marie – still sleeping?’

Edith glanced around at the empty chairs and shrugged. She had only now noticed that her sisters-in-law had not come down to breakfast that morning.

Without waiting for an answer, Juliette continued. ‘Ah, bien sûr, I remember now. They were going into the city today. Gertrude’s cousin has arrived from Amsterdam. They were to meet at the Café de Paris. You should have gone with them, my dear Edith. Gertrude and Marie must be considered your sisters now. But isn’t the weather horrid. Krima! What a shame! Listen to what I propose. After breakfast, let’s go up and see the baby together. What do you say? She’s begun to smile, did you know that, Auntie Edith? Between you and me, she’s looking more and more like your brother. I haven’t said as much to Marie, in order not to hurt her feelings, but little Daphne is the picture of her father. She even looks rather like me, I think. After all, your brother greatly resembles me.’

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About the Author

Defne Suman was born in Istanbul and grew up on Prinkipo Island. She gained a Masters in sociology from the Bosphorus University then worked as a teacher in Thailand and Laos where she studied Far Eastern philosophy and mystic disciplines. She later continued her studies in Oregon and now lives in Athens with her husband. The Silence of Scheherazade was first published in Turkey and Greece in 2015 and is her English language debut.