The Book:
Each year, when the weather in Istanbul becomes unbearable, the family of Iskender Pasha, a retired Ottoman notable, retires to its summer palace overlooking the Sea of Marmara. It is 1899 and the last great Islamic empire is in serious trouble. A former tutor poses a question which the family has been refusing to confront for almost a century: 'Your Ottoman Empire is like a drunken prostitute, neither knowing nor caring who will take her next. Do I exaggerate, Memed?' The history of Iskender Pasha's family mirrors the growing degeneration of the Empire they have served for the last five hundred years. This passionate story of masters and servants, school-teachers and painters, is marked by jealousies, vendettas and, with the decay of the Empire, a new generation which is deeply hostile to the half-truths and myths of the 'golden days. The Stone Woman is the third novel of Tariq Ali's 'Islam Quintet'. Like its predecessors—Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree and The Book of Saladin — its power lies both in the story-telling and the challenge it poses to stereotyped images of life under Islam.
The Author:
Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written over a dozen books on world history and politics, as well as plays for both stage and screen. Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is the first in a quintet of novels that trace the history of Islam. It has been translated into over a dozen languages and was awarded the Archbishop San Clemente del Insituto Rosalia de Castro Prize for the Best Foreign Language Fiction published in Spain in 1994.
