Book Review — Sabahattin Ali

I discovered this book the way so many others do — BookTok. I knew almost nothing about the plot, which turned out to be the right way in.

It’s 1920s Berlin. A young Turkish man named Raif arrives to learn a trade (soap-making, of all things) and falls into a love story. He meets her through a painting first. Then in person. They fall in love the slow way, through friendship, which the book argues is the only real way. She dies. He carries on, numbly.

This is a sad love story that doesn’t announce itself as one. It arrives gently and then doesn’t leave.

What stayed with me is the book’s central argument: that we become our fullest selves inside proper love, and that when it ends, really ends, we become ghosts of ourselves. Raif spends the rest of his life as proof of that. It’s devastating in the most understated way.

My one criticism is not even the book’s fault. The hype primes you for something transcendent, and the first half moves slowly enough that you might wonder what all the fuss was about. It’s short enough that you should stick with it. The payoff is not a twist or a crescendo, it’s a feeling that accumulates, and by the end you’ll understand exactly why people won’t stop talking about it.

A quick read I savored every page of. My first Turkish author and not my last.

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali. Translated by Maureen Freely & Alexander Dawe. This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.