Three young women and the extraordinary Madam Lilla embark on a road trip from Tunisia to Lebanon as the Arab Spring breaks around them. The novel’s title is taken from a sura in the Koran that warns to beware of those ‘women who blow on knots’ because they do witchcraft. The women all set out for different reasons but each holds a secret that drives them forward. It is only as they travel further across the desert that Madam Lilla’s dark intentions become clear and their quest begins hurtling towards an unimaginable end. Unique and controversial in its country of origin for its political rhetoric and atypical Muslim female characters, Ece Temelkuran weaves an empowering tale that challenges us to ponder not only the social questions of politics, religion and women in the Middle East, but also the universal bonds of sister- and motherhood.

The bestselling Turkish classic of love and loss in a changing world, with a new introduction by David Selim Sayers 'A heart-breaker . . . it has the kind of indefinably powerful impact of The Great Gatsby' Observer 'It is, perhaps, easier to dismiss a man whose face gives no indication of an inner life. And what a pity that is: a dash of curiosity is all it takes to stumble upon treasures we never expected.' A shy young man leaves his home in rural Turkey to learn a trade in 1920s Berlin. The city's crowded streets, thriving arts scene, passionate politics and seedy cabarets provide the backdrop for a chance meeting with a woman, which will haunt him for the rest of his life. Emotionally powerful, intensely atmospheric and touchingly profound, Madonna in a Fur Coat is an unforgettable novel about new beginnings and the unfathomable nature of the human soul. 'A miniature masterpiece' The National 'A gorgeously melancholic romance' Irish Times

A literary discovery: an uproarious tragicomedy of modernization, in its first-ever English translation
Perhaps the greatest Turkish novel of the twentieth century, being discovered around the world only now, more than fifty years after its first publication, "The Time Regulation Institute" is an antic, freewheeling send-up of the modern bureaucratic state.
At its center is Hayri Irdal, an infectiously charming antihero who becomes entangled with an eccentric cast of characters--a television mystic, a pharmacist who dabbles in alchemy, a dignitary from the lost Ottoman Empire, a "clock whisperer"--at the Time Regulation Institute, a vast organization that employs a hilariously intricate system of fines for the purpose of changing all the clocks in Turkey to Western time. Recounted in sessions with his psychoanalyst, the story of Hayri Irdal's absurdist misadventures plays out as a brilliant allegory of the collision of tradition and modernity, of East and West, infused with a poignant blend of hope for the promise of the future and nostalgia for a simpler time.