Engagement - Paperback

by Ciler Ilhan (Author), Kenneth Dakan (Translator)

A celebratory dinner and engagement ceremony is to be held at a large home in Our Village, in southeast Turkey. Halil, the cousin of the future bride, Leyla, is sent to a nearby village to buy the traditional cologne. Leyla's sister, Maral, is told to go door-to-door to remind everyone to attend. Throughout the long day, the other women of the household clean, cook and toil. Meanwhile, a dust storm descends out of nowhere and a menacing mist settles over the village streets.

This harrowing tale, which spans sixteen hours and is told through the eyes of a mysterious narrator, delves into the bad blood between two timeless villages where most of the men are heavily armed village guards, and there is money to be made in agriculture, oil, fish farms and more. Geographical complexities, tangled relations, hazy memories and unreliable witnesses make for a story in which perhaps nothing is as it seems...

Based on the true story of the May 2009 massacre of over forty people, including women, children and infants, in a village in the south-eastern province of Mardin, Turkey.