I prefer to be an Ottoman
Justin Huggler
- The Stone Woman by Tariq Ali
Verso, 274 pp, £15.00, July 2000, ISBN 1 85984 764 1
No country in the Islamic world has embraced the West as eagerly as Turkey has, which makes it an intriguing setting for the third novel in Tariq Ali’s Islamic Quartet: a series of snapshots of the great historic collisions between the two cultures, taken from the Eastern point of view. The Stone Woman is set as the 19th century draws to a close. With the Ottoman Empire in terminal decline, Ali sends the members of a wealthy and aristocratic Turkish family hurrying to the bedside of the patriarch, Iskander Pasha, who has had a stroke. As he slowly recovers, the family, their friends and servants debate whether their country, ‘the sick man of Europe’, can get better too.
You are not logged in
- If you have already registered please login here
- If you are using the site for the first time please register here
- If you would like access to all 12,000 articles subscribe here
- Institutions or university library users please login here
- Learn more about our institutional subscriptions here
Vol. 22 No. 23 · 30 November 2000 » Justin Huggler » I prefer to be an Ottoman
page 35 | 1815 words