Defne Suman in Conversation With Maureen Freely

Set in the ancient city of Smyrna, Defne Suman’s powerful novel, The Silence of Scheherazade (Head of Zeus), follows the intertwining fates of four families as their peaceful city is ripped apart by the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. On an orange-tinted evening in September 1905, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother in the ancient city of Smyrna. At the very same moment, a dashing Indian spy arrives in the harbor with a secret mission from the British Empire. He sails in to golden-hued spires and minarets, scents of fig and sycamore, and the cries of street hawkers selling their wares. When he leaves, 17 years later, it will be to the heavy smell of kerosene and smoke as the city, and its people, are engulfed in flames. But let us not rush, for much will happen between then and now. 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. Suman will be joined in conversation by Maureen Freely, president of English PEN and author of Sailing Through Byzantium.

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