“My light went out on the 26th of April 1986; I was eighty three years old”. So begins Rikkat’s story of her life, a free-ranging and lively account of a long journey through the twentieth century, shaped by a single passion that lent it meaning – calligraphy. Her destiny was paradoxical, and particularly so because of her gender: during the 1920s, Ataturk’s republic was breaking away from Islam and gradually ridding itself of Arabic language and writing; in this context, Rikkat chose to practice a traditional Islamic art, which had moreover been an almost exclusively male preserve.
Calligraphers were cast off, because they’d been servants of Allah and the sultans, and their training academies were neglected. But in one academy Rikkat wins the affection of an old Master, Selim, who commits suicide not long afterwards, and seemingly designates her as his successor by leaving her his writing case and gold ink. After dying, Selim regularly and mischievously visits Rikkat from beyond the grave, faithfully guiding her in the perfecting of her art. She wins a national calligraphy competition, becomes a teacher at the Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts, and develops the traditional art by adapting it to the contemporary world. She has her own disciples, and draws consolation from her teaching and artistic practice when the world buffets her with challenges.
Because Rikkat’s life is hard: two failed marriages with men who neither love her nor care about her vocation; the death of a second son who had become a central figure in her life after their belated reconciliation; further painful causes of mourning, and finally the loss of the family home on the Bosphore river, condemned to demolition after she has lived and worked there for several decades.
But Rikkat’s passion for calligraphy carries her through these tragedies, saving the story from bleakness. She is forever conversing with the dead calligraphers who came before her. This dialogue with the deceased is at least as important as that she has with the living. A sort of religious continuity seems to link the two worlds, justifying the unusual narrative approach of a dead woman writing in the first person.
The title brings these different dimensions together – “nuit des calligraphes” (‘night of the calligraphers’) because the ancestral profession is threatened by the modernising trends in Turkey, but also because night is when the dead return, and seems best suited to creativity and its mysteries.
With this excellent first novel, Yasmine Ghata creates a subtle and rich portrayal of the Middle East and its complex, difficult relationship with the West – through the life of a woman who was in fact her own grandmother. A powerful, moving human fable that explores some of the problematic history that we inherit today.
English rights sold to Hesperus press
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