Madonna in a Fur Coat

This is a very literary novel that tells a bittersweet story of unrequited love set in 1920s Berlin. Our protagonist is a shy young Turkish man who understands life through art, primarily books. He falls in love with a painting then the artist and the story follows the development of this love affair to which the object of his desire can never fully commit herself.

Beneath this romantic tale is a meditation on loneliness and intimacy, on what it means to open oneself up to other people and the costs and joys of doing so. It also contemplates art as both a means of connection and communication as well as a barrier or substitute for personal interaction.

Thanks to Netgalley I was given the opportunity to read and review this beautiful book, written in Turkey in 1941 and translated now to English.

What can I say about Raif Efendi's story that doesn't sound lame and can actually do justice to the strength of his love and his commitment to the woman he loved for a few months, for the rest of his life? This was a story that resonated deeply inside me, because at many levels I related to this shy and introvert man, full of deep thoughts and a rich inner life that he struggled to reveal to the outer world.

All of his life people misunderstood him and sold him short, just because he retreated inside his head and was unable to communicate in a strong way. However, he had a rich past, full of hopes and dreams, that he had shared with no one, and that at some point in his life were a promise for a life that could have turned out quite different.

Beautiful and sad, this book that was written in Turkey in 1941 could actually have been written today, anywhere in the world, and it's a rare gem.

Recommended to everyone who has ever loved, or will ever love.

Ok, this is another of those books that I requested based on the strength of the cover and the title. I can’t say that I loved Madonna in a Fur Coat but I can appreciate certain things about the story. The whole bait and switch of protagonists was in interesting twist. Along with the mysterious nature of Marie and the unending yearning of Reif made the story romantic and certainly of its period.

Whilst Madonna in a Fur Coat certainly has positives it is not something I would normally read.

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali is available now.

For more information regarding Penguin Classics (@classicpenguins) please visit www.penguinclassics.co.uk.

Madonna in a Fur Coat is a the story of a love affair between a shy Turkish man and a freedom-loving artist in Berlin in the 1920s. When a man slowly becomes friends with his new colleague Raif Efendi, he doesn’t realise that soon he will read Raif’s notebook and discover how the man knows German and what makes him seem so serious. First published in Turkey in the 1940s, Sabahattin Ali’s novel has now been translated into English so this tale of yearning and belonging can be read by a new audience.

Through a framing narrator who finds a job out of desperation and gets drawn into the story of his new colleague, the novel tells the narrative of Raif Efendi, a Turkish man who leaves his native country to study and discover who he is in Germany in the 1920s. His notebook tells his tale, from his sense of isolation in the world to the chance encounter in an art exhibition that will consume his life. The novel is mostly about inner feelings and the tiny steps of an unconventional love affair with a woman who values her freedom and has no time for the way women are mostly treated at that point. The main characters are eccentric and vivid, forming a concise and enjoyable piece of literary fiction with a meditative core.

How happy I am that this beautiful story was translated into English after all this time! I often think about the many potentially life-changing books I will never be able to discover or even read because of language barriers, and it's a thought that makes me indescribably sad. But here it is! Taking place in Berlin during the 1920s and in Ankara of the following decades, featuring a shy male protagonist who falls in love with a painting, and the artist who gives new meaning to his life - what more could I ask for? The Turkish classic of my dreams!

I could hardly summarize the plot without giving away all of it, as to be honest there is little plot to begin with, but in any case it's that profoundly romantic philosophy that pushed me on through the pages. All the while, every strange train of thought made sense, and I felt deeply attached to the characters, perhaps because of my own migration background and my personal nostalgia for the jazz age that reaches beyond the known Western image of its glamour.

Despite it being a story inside a story - a literary device that I'm getting increasingly sick of in historical fiction - I enjoyed <i>Madonna in a Fur Coat</i> as I have enjoyed only few novels from the early 20th century. In fact, I marvelled at the progressive ideas Sabahattin Ali managed to put into beautiful, beautiful words, and at the many feminist notions that left me pleasantly surprised.

There are so many precious quotes that the author left us in this work alone and that are surely going to keep me awake tonight. I'm afraid that for the first time in my life I'll have to pick up a neon pen and mark the most beautiful passages in a physical book copy to return to on bleak Sunday afternoons. I hope with all my heart that this beautiful novel is going to be a success with its newly-found audience!