A man and a woman stand in the top tier of the Sultan’s gardens, preparing to race down to the shoreline of the Golden Horn. The woman is a calligrapher, condemned for turning holy prayers into faces and animals, for ‘reassembling the word of God.’ The man is a bostanci, one of the palace gardeners who also serve as the Sultan’s guards and executioners. The man knows if her gets to the shoreline before the woman, he will end her life. If the calligrapher wins, her life will be spared. The Executioner’s Race is a rare privilege in Ottoman Istanbul, but it has never been accorded to a woman before and no one can understand why.
In 1841, Andersen, professional writer and nervous traveler, sails into Istanbul. Starved of recognition at home, he wants to forget the critics and ciphers who have dogged his career. On the steamship Andersen befriends a Turkish florist, Musa, who tells him about a woman calligrapher, a friend of his called Zeynep, who was arrested seven years ago and who has troubled his conscience ever since.
The two meet again in the city and it becomes clear that the mysterious florist wants Andersen to write Zeynep’s story. Musa shows Andersen her calligraphy, which seems to morph into something magical before his eyes. Andersen imagines the calligrapher’s life amid stories of ancient tulips, dervishes and shadow puppets. But her death remains a mystery and it becomes clear to Andersen that Musa knows more about this than he is prepared to disclose.
andrew bynom 