The international bestselling tale of love and loss in 1920s Berlin, now a Penguin Classics paperback
The pain of losing something precious can be forgotten over time. But our missed opportunities never leave us, and every time they come back to haunt us, we ache.
A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade and discover life in 1920s Berlin. There, amid the city's bustling streets, elegant museums, passionate politics and seedy cabarets, a chance meeting transforms his life forever. Caught between his desire for freedom and his yearning to belong, he struggles to hold on to the new life he has found.
About the Author
Sabahattin Ali was born in 1907 in the Ottoman town of Egridere (now Ardino in southern Bulgaria) and was killed on the Bulgarian border in 1948 as he attempted to leave Turkey. A teacher, writer, and journalist, he owned and edited a popular weekly newspaper called Marko Pasa and was imprisoned twice for his political views.
Industry Reviews
A heart-breaker . . . it has the kind of indefinably powerful impact of The Great Gatsby
Salley Vickers, Observer
'Moving and memorable, full of yearning and melancholy ... reading it is like taking a literary minibreak.
Fiona Wilson, The Times
A poignant coming-of-age tale, drenched in disillusionment. The gap between hope and reality, art and ordinary life, has been explored in many other novels, but rarely with the unaffected simplicity of Madonna in a Fur Coat.
William Armstrong, Times Literary Supplement
A gorgeously melancholic romance . . . a cautionary tale certain to beguile
Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
A tale of young love and disenchantment, of missed opportunities and passion's elusive, flickering flame . . . reminiscent of Turgenev's First Love, with a hero every bit as gauche, and a twist every bit as bitter
Toby Lichtig, Financial Times
Recreates a vanished era and dramatises a doomed relationship, and does so with verve, depth and poignancy. A miniature masterpiece.
Malcolm Forbes, The National