Unto the Tulip Gardens

Gül Irepoglu, Feyza Howell

Description

For whose shadow will the tulip gardens long when their world comes crashing down?

The sumptuous Topkapı Palace in eighteenth century Istanbul is a place of breathtaking splendour where human foibles, love, lust and above all greed reign supreme in the lives of a sultan, a painter, a grand vizier and some of the world’s most beautiful women. Imperial favour has raised a graceful blossom to the symbol of a time that history would later name the Tulip Era. Sultan Ahmed III reigns over a still vast empire as his close companion and Chief Imperial Painter Levnî creates exquisite works of art. But real power lies with his trusted Grand Vizier İbrahim Pasha. In the background, the radiant denizens of the imperial harem fight for supremacy in their cloistered universe. How will history record Sultan Ahmed III? Hedonist, aesthete or reformer? What will happen to his descendants? 'Unto the Tulip Gardens: My Shadow' is a novel founded on historical fact woven by the silken yarn of imagination.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 27 juin 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783084562
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

UNTO THE TULIP GARDENS
Unto the Tulip Gardens: My Shadow
ANTHEM PRESS
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company Limited (WPC)
First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
ANTHEM PRESS
75-76 Blackfriars Road
London SE1 8HA
www.anthempress.com
Original title: G lgemi Bıraktım Lale Bah elerinde
Copyright G l İrepoğlu 2014
Originally published by Doğan Kitap, Istanbul, Turkey
English translation copyright Feyza Howell 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78308-455-5
This title is also available as an e-book.
UNTO THE TULIP GARDENS: MY SHADOW
A novel by
G L REPOG˘LU
Translated by Feyza Howell
About the Author
G l İrepoğlu
Architect, art historian, lecturer, broadcaster and novelist, Prof Dr G l İrepoğlu was born in Istanbul. Her research on the life and works of Levn resulted in the book entitled Levn : Painting, Poetry, Colour . Her other books, some of which have already been published in other languages, are as follows:
The Concubine , set in the latter half of the 18th century, is a love story woven around Sultan Abd lhamid I and a remarkable concubine in his harem.
An Istanbul Kaleidoscope with a Bow is an autobiographical look at modern history through the medium of fashion.
İrepoğlu is married, has two children and lives in Istanbul.
Feyza Howell
Born in Izmir, Howell is a graduate of Robert College in Istanbul with a UK Honours degree in Graphic Design. She holds an impressive backlist and is experienced in various aspects of international business from design, advertising, TV production, marketing and product management to business development. Throughout this period, she has always drawn, written and translated. Her interests include tennis, yoga and dance.
Howell is married, has a son and lives in Berkshire.
Letter to the Reader
What you hold in your hands was written as much more than a historical novel. True, the Ottoman court of the 18th century provides the backdrop, but it is people who matter, people who might not have behaved all that differently in a different time or place. This book might provide an insight into an Ottoman emperor as a man, into the invariable flaws and joys of human nature, or enable the reader to indulge in colourful speculation on the personality of a famous artist. And ultimately, yes, keeping the historical context foremost, scrutinise an era confined to predictable platitudes for far too long. Some incidents might be taken as symbolic and human relationships as factual, or vice versa. Yet, why shouldn t we transport ourselves to the opulence of the Tulip Era as we read? That was what drove me to include factual information; try as I might to extricate myself from the university lecturer s robes, this was the ideal environment in which to exercise my preferred method of teaching: wrapping intricate information in entertainment and surprise.
It wasn t a time for women; some women used their wits to advance their own causes or alter the course of events and some even succeeded in one or both. I examined this men s world from a woman s viewpoint and attempted to establish a link between details that remained fresh.
Reading into history is more rewarding than merely reading history: the spaces between the lines of social history, in particular - the dearth of published documentation notwithstanding - has so much capacity to inspire. The events in this novel may well suggest comparisons with other times. The story is rich with trivia, largely taken for granted, but which once would have been crucial.
Speech patterns used in the novel refer to another time and place, but I did avoid writing entire conversations in Ottoman since that would have made the novel indecipherable.
I felt so close to these characters, as if I knew them personally. On occasion, I asked myself if I had lived then, in an earlier life. The more you delve into history, the more you begin to speculate on what else might have taken place. For someone who loves to write, the rest comes easy.
I was determined not to allow my love of writing hinder my existing commitments. Throughout the two and a half years it took to write this novel, I carried on with my academic research, and thus emerged my modus operandi - stolen time, the only time I had to write, time otherwise jealously safeguarded. At that strange time of night just before drifting off when the conscious mind wanders came inspiration, forcing me to leap out of bed, sneak up to my desk without disturbing the family and write a note or two in longhand on scraps of paper or fire up the computer for a longer session. I muted the start-up jingle to avoid waking my husband or daughters up at some ungodly hour. That was the sort of sneaking I loved!
What you hold in your hands is history brightened with imagination, or history with a topping of fiction.
G l İrepoğlu
On the Art of Turkish Miniature Painting
Miniatures have illustrated manuscripts since the Middle Ages both in Western Europe and in Asia. The name is derived from the Latin minium - red lead - which was the most widely used pigment, and it does not refer to the size as is generally supposed. This art form is known as nakış in Turkish, the artist nakkaş and the workshop nakkaşhane .
The earliest examples of such illustrations in the Muslim world date back to 9th-century Egypt, and delicate works on pieces of silk prove portrait painting was popular amongst the pre-Islamic Turkic peoples in Central Asia.
Sel uk Turks painted miniatures despite religious restrictions on representative arts, and their successors, Ottoman illuminators, excelled from the 15th century onwards. Wherever there is censure, art invents its own method of circumventing it: deliberately avoiding any attempt at perspective, modelling or realism helped artists get away with painting portraits.
Brilliant colours and a graphic sensitivity to layout distinguish Turkish miniatures. The painter supported the chronicler to record both everyday events and special occasions. These miniatures would be bound into albums, either as part of a book or as an independent pictorial volume. Workshops frequently operated as reproduction studios whenever more than one patron commissioned a volume.
Miniatures deserve to be inspected at leisure, and both Topkapı Palace in Istanbul and the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin possess impressive collections. Further material on the art of miniature painting is found in G l İrepoğlu s Levn : Painting, Poetry, Colour and facsimile editions of Levn s S rname-i Vehb .
G l İrepoğlu and Feyza Howell
Notes on Pronunciation
Ottoman names are spelt in modern Turkish throughout the book. Exceptions were made for the titles pasha and agha, words that had entered English long before Turkish alphabet reform.
Turkish is phonetic, with a single sound assigned to most letters. A circumflex accent [^] either elongates the vowel upon which it rests or thins the k or l preceding it.
The consonants pronounced differently from English are as follows:
c =
j in jack
=
ch in chat
j =
French j in jour
ş =
sh in ship
ğ =
soft g is silent; it merely lengthens the vowel preceding it
r =
r in read; at the end of syllables closest to the Welsh, as in mawr.
y =
English y in yellow
The vowels are equally straightforward: a = shorter than the English , as in father e = e in bed ( never as in me) ı = schwa; the second syllable in higher i = i in bin ; never as in eye
and = like the corresponding German umlaut sounds
Given names are usually accented on the final syllable, so Ah-MED, Lev-N or İb-ra-HİM. The title sultan precedes the name of an emperor and follows the names of royal women, so Sultan Ahmed, but G lnuş Sultan.
Feyza Howell
Stefanaki
The amber-eyed child
It was the first day of April 1687, in the thirty-ninth year of the very long reign of the nineteenth Ottoman emperor, Padişah Sultan Mehmed the Fourth - known amongst common folk as Mehmed the Hunter - and this for him would be another ordinary day of customary concerns and pastimes.
In the western lands known as the Rumeli province of the vast empire, however, this cool April day was far from ordinary for some of his subjects, being the day of devşirme - of collecting the child tribute.
Stefanaki, one of the three sons of a farming family who lived in a village close to Salonika, was deemed fit to serve the Ottoman State. He was at the bottom end of the range, being then only eight years of age , and a healthy, fine-looking boy. Below his black eyebrows, honey-coloured eyes sparkled with intelligence belying the sadness of his gaze. He was well built for his age in contrast to his two thin, pale elder brothers.
He was holding his father s hand for the last time.
Name?
Stefanaki.
Father s name?
The details were recorded carefully, without haste. Conflicting expressions showed on the boy s father s face: submission to the inevitable and relief at the arrival of the dreaded event. His mother stood still at a distance, li