Stone and Shadow
ABOUT
THE BOOK
In the city of Mardin, the orphaned Avdo finds purpose when an old mason takes him on as an apprentice. From Master Josef, he learns the importance of their art, which looks after the dead and bears witness to their lives. Avdo travels the country and meets a woman he loves wholeheartedly, only to lose her through a tragic crime. Resigned to a lonely existence, he retreats from the world into his cemetery workshop, but even there, life, with all its sorrows, joys, injustices, and gifts, draws him in unexpected directions.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Alexander
Dawe
Alexander Dawe is an American translator of French and Turkish. He lives in Istanbul.
Alexander Dawe is an American translator of French and Turkish. He lives in Istanbul.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
The story unravels through various time shifts between past and present and through the life of various pleople who end up in a cemetery. The cemetery puts together the living (suffering, persecuted, alone) and the dead in a connection that preserves love beyond death. the cemitery becomes a place of peace and the carving of headstone an act of love. A beautifully told story of love and longing written in an evocative language that creates a magical, spiritual atmosphere where the voice of the fountain in the cemetery softens the sense of loss and suffering of the living and the dead.