The

Silence of

Scheherazade

Now available (UK); coming September 19 (US)

On an orange-tinted evening in September 1905, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother in the ancient city of Smyrna…

The Silence of Scheherazade that was cherished so much by its readers in Turkey and Greece is now coming out in English with Betsy Göksel’s meticulous translation!

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Suman’s tale is at its heart about those small people living their daily lives within the city, loving each other and loving the land beneath them.
—Laurel Taylor, Asymptote

Told in luminous prose, The Silence of Scheherazade is a romance full of rich and memorable characters whose lives collided with a pivotal and tragic moment in history. The novel is a delight.
—Lou Ureneck, author of Smyrna, September 1922

When Smyrna was reduced to ashes in September 1922, the world lost one of its most beautifully cosmopolitan cities. [It is] brought back to life in all its glory in this rich tale of love and loss, giving voice to the silenced, and music to their histories.
—Maureen Freely, chair of PEN, UK

This novel of Old Izmir and the Great Fire of Smyrna is a must-read!
—Ayşe Arman, Hürriyet

Defne Suman is a story-teller. She tells the story of how history inevitably determines our personalities, destinies and lives. She tells the story of how love, emotions and identities are influenced by socio-political events of a lifetime.
—Oya Baydar, Cumhuriyet

Silence of Scheherazade is a wonderful, social and historical novel, with delicate touches of love, and realistic moments of a daily life that was lost forever.
—Panos Tourlis, Books and Style

What a good novel The Silence of Scheherazade is… It reminds me the darkness in Joyce’s Dubliners and the works of Louis de Bernieres.
—Leyla Çapan, author

A symphony of literature.
—Prof. Dr. Mete Tapan

About

Defne Suman was born in Istanbul and grew up on Prinkipo Island. She gained a Masters in sociology from the Bosphorus University and 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, USA and now lives in Athens with her husband. The Silence of Scheherazade was first published in Turkey and Greece in 2016 and is her English language debut.

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