[For information on the upcoming May 9 book launch for Sarah Shoemaker's Mr. Rochester, click here.]
The
eleven-year-old girl, Cecilia Baffo Veniero, first loses her mother in Venice
in the year 1537 and following that trauma, nine weeks and three days later, is
abducted by Barbarossa, Admiral of the Fleet for the Sulvan Sulieman of the
Ottoman Empire and delivered, after a long sea voyage, to the sultan’s harem.
Sulieman does not, however, take the girl for his concubine. He has other plans
for Cecilia and begins by giving her a new name: Nurbanu. Her father’s aristocratic
background and the girl’s own extensive education give her special status in
the sultan’s eyes.
Both
readers of history and of fiction will find this novel engrossing. For me it
was a plunge into an exotic world of the past. Nurbanu herself makes major
transitions -- from Europe to Asia Minor, from Christianity to Islam, from a
protected girlhood to a womanhood charged with responsibilities and extreme
challenges. An important theme in the novel is that of fratricide, imposed by
law on the sultan’s family to create an unambiguous line of succession and
obviate civil war.
Less
problematic aspects of sixth-century Turkey are nevertheless also fascinating
to a modern reader. These include the sultanate itself but also the state of
science 1500 years ago. Cecilia’s mother, also highly educated, was a gifted
mapmaker, and maps were an important part of science in those times. In the
sphere of mechanics, clocks and navigational devices were wonders of the world.
Books and libraries were uncommon and highly valued.
This
is the author’s first novel, and it is an ambitious one that succeeds. A brief
preface on “Historical Context” is helpful in setting the scene, and the
Selected Genealogy of key characters was absolutely crucial to my
understanding. I referred to it often, particularly in the early chapters when
I was still finding my way around in the family generations.
I
don’t read many historical novels but am glad this one came my way. It took me
to a far distant era and foreign world, shedding light on a very different
culture and its ways through compelling characters facing universal human
problems: Who am I? Who is my family? What is my place in the world, whom
can I trust, and what should I do?
The
Mapmaker’s Daughter: The Confessions
Of Nurbanu
Sultan, 1525-1583
by
Katherine Nouri Hughes
To
be released August 2017
Paper,
368pp
$18
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