The Calligraphers' Night (New Fiction) - Hardcover

'...precisely executed... eerily beautiful... an extraordinary writer' --The Guardian

'There is something of the calligrapher's arabesque to the story. Ghata's prose flows and meanders, it swirls like the motifs Rikkat lays on the page with her brush...' --A Work in Progress blog

'She has woven her family history into a portrait of a country at the point of dramatic change.' --The Times, In Short

It's 1923, and the young Rikkat is being brought up in the belief that her entire life will be the devoted to the art of calligraphy. That same year, Ataturk's republic breaks away from the venerable Islamic tradition and progressively abolishes the Arabic language and scripts in favor of a modified version of the Latin alphabet. Once the sacred ministers of Allah and Sultans, calligraphers are now being marginalized and their schools closed. The resulting suicide of Rikkat's mentor can only reinforce her spite for the new regime and her love for the ancient art she has been taught since her childhood. Inspired by the life of the author's grandmother, this is a breathtaking excursion into the mysteries of life, time, death, and writing as an art. Blending elements of magical realism with a vivid description of Turkey at a turning point in its history, Yasmine Ghata’s wonderfully evocative work is a classic and inspired debut novel, which was awarded the Lauréat de la Bourse de la Découverte 2004.