From a turkish writer who has been compared with borges, nabokov, and delillo comes a dazzling novel that is at once a captivating work of historical fiction and a sinuous treatise on the enigma of identity and the relat...From a turkish writer who has been compared with borges, nabokov, and delillo comes a dazzling novel that is at once a captivating work of historical fiction and a sinuous treatise on the enigma of identity and the relations between east and west. In the 17th century, a young Italian scholar sailing from venice to naples is taken prisoner and delivered to constantinople.