His house was small but charming, his wife homely but amiable. Without embarrassment, they kissed each other. Then Hamdi left me to go and wash. He seemed pleased to have run into me. Perhaps because it gave him a chance to show me how well he'd done, or because, when he looked at me, he was so glad he wasn't like me. When misfortune visits those who once walked alongside us, we do tend to feel relief, almost as if we believe we have ourselves been spared, and as we come to convince ourselves that they are suffering in our stead, we feel for these wretched creatures. We feel merciful. This was more or less the tone Hamdi took when he asked, "Are you still writing?" Again, I laughed. Whereupon he said, "You really have to stop, my friend!" and went on to lecture me about how, if I wanted to be successful, I had to start being practical, and how empty pursuits like literature could do nothing but harm once your schooldays were behind you. He spoke to me as if I were a child, never considering that I might have something to say, indeed to argue, in response, and he did not shy away from making it clear that it was success that had given him his courage. Meanwhile I just sat there, hiding behind a smile that I was sure must look very foolish and only served to add to his confidence. If this psychological scarring were not enough, we meet Raif when he is in uncommunicative middle-age, introduced through a younger colleague and, insofar as Raif has one, confidant. The narrator, some quarter of the way in, is told by Raif on his deathbed to fetch his journal. Only then do we hear Raif’s story. In lesser hands, this story in a story might be trite, but just as Raif and Maria find themselves through each other, this other narrator only comes to understand his own restlessness through Raif’s story. Sabahattin Ali (February 25, 1907 – April 2, 1948) was a Turkish novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist.

Appearances are not what they seem in Ali’s rich novel, first published in Turkey in 1943 and only now appearing in the U.S…Ali explores Maria and Efendi’s complex relationship through Maria’s thoughts on the metaphorical and physical boundaries of love, the expectations placed on men and women, the roles they take up or discard, and the choices people make when they are looking for a meaningful relationship. The narrator comes to understand that the outward appearance of Efendi’s life as numb and unsatisfying belies its unimaginable depths of feeling and vulnerability. This fascinating story veers in surprising and revealing directions.”— Publishers Weekly His nervous antihero is also endeavouring to master German, while reading Russian writers, such as Turgenev, whose “great stories” he reads “in one sitting”. Possibly deliberately, there are hints of Turgenev’s bitter miniature, First Love (1860). Although the diary evokes a Berlin which is part Isherwood, part Roth, Raif dates his account in June 1933, a significant moment in history, just months after Hitler became German chancellor.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 ...The translation by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe is crisp, capturing Ali’s directness and clarity of language.”— Times Literary Supplement Konuyu ve kitaba ilişkin bazı doneleri buraya yazmak isterdim, ancak onları buraya yazarak kendi eleştirel dilimle kirletmekten ve değerlerini azaltmaktan korkuyorum. Buraya "aşk nedir?" yazsam, klişe bir aşk romanı sanabilirsiniz, buraya "içsel dünya" desem, çok felsefi bulabilirsiniz. Kitap bunların hiçbirisi değil. En iyisi kendiniz keşfetmeniz.

Büyük konuşmayacaksın' derdi babam, haklıymış. Kitabın bu kadar yüksek bir puan almasını garipsemiş, madem bu kadar güzel bir kitap, neden diğer dillere tercüme edilip bir Dünya klasiği haline gelmemiş diye eleştirmiştim. Bu kadar içten, beni bu kadar derinden etkileyen, kendimle bu kadar özdeşleştirdiğim, içimi tatlı tatlı sıkan, gözlerimi dolduran, sayfaları hızlıca çevirip boğazımdaki düğümü bir türlü atamadan okuduğum başka bir kitap var mıdır bilmiyorum. I could have carried on as I was, shunning human company and leading a mediocre existence, but at no point having to face how very empty my life was. I’d have dragged on through life, convinced that my strange temperament allowed me no more, and never would I have known what it meant to lead a happy life. I’d have suffered from loneliness, while still believing that one day I might be rescued. Such was my state of mind when Maria, or rather her painting, came into my life. She had swept me away from my dark and silent world, delivering me to the land of truth and light. And now she had vanished, offering no reasons, and as suddenly as she’d come. captures the vibrancy of interwar Berlin through the story of a young man who leaves his rural village for the big city.” —New York Times Book ReviewHad so much to say about this short story when lying awake in the dark recounting my interaction, and I do so wish I had had the integrity to sit up and mark down some bullet points that would have helped me now.

itiraf etmeliyim: kürk mantolu madonna'yı okuyup okumadığımı soran herkese cevap olarak hazırladığım bir metin var, çok da keyif alırdım bilerek okumuyorum, her yerde görmekte bıktım, popülaritesini kaybedince okuyacağım derken. birkaç şaka eklerdim sonra, iltem dilek'in meşhur karikatürünü gösterirdim filan...ISTANBUL — A young Turkish man arrives in 1920s Berlin. Ignoring his business of soap manufacturing, he spends his days learning German and his nights reading books — especially the Russians, and especially Turgenev. He explores the city’s parks, its wide streets, its museums and art galleries. He is looking, as he put it, for something, “to sweep me off my feet.” When misfortune visits those who once walked alongside us, we do tend to feel relief, almost as if we believe we ourselves have been spared, and as we come to convince ourselves that they are suffering in our stead, we feel for these wretched creatures. We feel merciful.

While he was serving as a teacher in Konya, he was arrested for a poem he wrote criticizing Atatürk's policies, and accused of libelling two other journalists. Having served his sentence for several months in Konya and then in the Sinop Fortress Prison, he was released in 1933 in an amnesty granted to mark the 10th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of Turkey. He then applied to the Ministry of National Education for permission to teach again. After proving his allegiance to Atatürk by writing the poem "Benim Aşkım" (literally: My Love or My Passion), he was assigned to the publications division at the Ministry of National Education. Sabahattin Ali married on May 16, 1935 and did his military service in 1936. He was imprisoned again and released in 1944. He also owned and edited a popular weekly newspaper called "Marko Paşa" (pronounced "Marco Pasha"), together with Aziz Nesin. Sabahattin Ali's heartbreaking novel Madonna in a Fur Coatspins a beguiling love story…. With perceptiveness and compassion, Ali depicts the sexual politics of the time and the heady tension between his male and female characters. "Why is it that even in the way you beg, there is dominance, and pity in the way we refuse?" Maria asks Raif in what becomes a powerful monologue on female empowerment. In equal measure, Ali explores preconceptions of masculinity through Raif's vulnerability and his capacity for intimacy. Relationships are endangered, he shows, by misunderstanding and misjudgment more than malice…. English translation conveys the author's emotional intelligence and crisp lyricism. Its sad tinge of fatalism belies its deeper, more dynamic aspects. Love both tortures and redeems the soul. …a compelling and tragic love story between a Turkish man and German woman.”— Shelf Awareness(starred)

I went to sit down at my desk. I examined the scratches and faint ink stains on its surface. What I longed to do, as is customary when sitting across from a stranger, was to size him up, and with stolen glances to form my first — and of course, mistaken — impressions. But he, I saw, had no such desire; he just bent down over his work and continued as if I weren't even there. He seemed so confident, so pleased with himself. He could now, after all, enjoy the luxury of helping his friends. How I envied him! derken, beni ortalarına yaklaştığım sıralarda çekti içine, kahve yapmak için mola vermesem yutacaktı resmen!