Kirjahaku

Generous and ingenious, Fatma wants to give her descendants a chance at a better life, one that bears more risk than she may take for herself. Fatma is born a child of rape, deep in the fairy cave dwellings of Cappadochia in the central Anatolia regions of Turkey. At the moment of her birth, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk, future founder of the Republic of Turkey), is driving Allied forces from the Gallipoli peninsula.Set against the backdrop of Ataturk's sweeping changes, As They Are follows the story of a village girl struggling to become a woman as the decimated Ottoman Empire struggles to become a republic. Fatma aspires to become a journalist when her life is upended by the threat of blindness.She grapples with life-paralyzing depression that threatens her sanity after the birth of her first child.She must face the secrets that have undermined the truth about her life.As an elder, wise woman, Fatma is the nearly blind widow of a potter, running a small empire with her sons, leading a simple life in not-so-simple times. Yet one questions remains: What would you sacrifice so that your descendants could live a better life?

From the award-winning author of What Survives and As They Are, comes another literary novel of women empowering each other.It is the evening of July 15, 2016. Nuray Demir, a journalist, steps off the tram in Istanbul to visit her friend, Adalet Ulusoy. Gun shots burst out nearby, and chaos breaks loose in the streets before her eyes. Soldiers are dispersing everywhere. Nuray runs to investigate and crosses paths with the wrong soldier.Adalet struggles with a long-distance relationship that has gone on for several years. He is Jewish, and she is Muslim. He lives in New York, and she lives in Istanbul. He would marry her in a heartbeat, but she is too emotionally tied to Turkey to make that commitment.These two women, each in completely different circumstances, are both caught up in a vortex of change. Will they learn to navigate and overcome this new reality? Or will they find a way to safely leave it behind?