Alan Drew

In 1999, in a town on the outskirts of Istanbul, Sinan Batioethlu is caught up in every-day struggles. Despite the hardships he confronts as a minority Kurd he must present a model of proud manhood for his nine-year-old son Ysmail. Meanwhile his teenage daughter Yrem is growing more resentful every day of her role helping her mother run the house, Sinan's ban on Western television, and covering her glorious hair beneath a headscarf. But the delicate stability of this family is about to be upended in the wake of a devastating earthquake that will strip Sinan of his home and livelihood, and with them his certainty in himself as a father, husband, and man of Islamic faith.Reliant upon Christian missionaries running the camp they now call home and morally indebted to an American who has endured tragedy yet whom Sinan distrusts (and whose son exerts a frightening pull on Yrem), Sinan becomes entangled in a series of increasingly dangerous decisions. Pushed towards a final betrayal, Sinan may yet find that everything he holds dear is destroyed, like the streets of Istanbul which lie in rubble beneath his feet.

Turkey, 1999. A devastating earthquake brings Istanbul crumbling to the ground, ripping apart the fragile stability of Sinan's world. His family home becomes a makeshift tent in a camp run by Western missionaries whom he stubbornly distrusts, and he soon finds himself struggling to protect his family's honour and values. As he becomes a helpless witness to his daughter's dangerous infatuation with a young American, Sinan takes a series of drastic decisions with unforeseeable consequences. Cultures clash, political and religious tensions mount, and Sinan's actions spiral into a powerful and heartbreaking conclusion.