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Zusatztext “Each chapter glows like a small! precious jewel.” — The Washington Post “Alev Croutier’s grown-up fairy tale! with its strangely mesmerizing events! operates in a wonderful space between story and history and lures the reader into that place directly.” — Diane Johnson! author of Le Mariage “A beautiful little book ... like a rare perfume or an exquisite painting! it commands our complete! rapt attention.” — Roanoke Times “This is an enchanting tale of love: a man dreams of a woman while she dreams of a man who is dreaming of her. It reminds me of Silk by Alessandro Baricco! and One Thousand and One Nights ! but Alev Croutier has a voice of her own! soft and poetic! like music in a Turkish garden.” — Isabel Allende! author of Daughter of Fortune Informationen zum Autor Alev Croutier was born in Turkey. She has written and directed award-winning independent films and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (the first ever for a screenplay) for her work on Tell Me a Riddle . She is the author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Harem: The World Behind the Veil . She divides her time between San Francisco and Paris. Klappentext It is 1868. On a balmy autumn afternoon in Paris, young winemaker Casimir de Châteauneuf wanders into a small shop filled with curiosities from the Orient. There he spies a cache of fine miniature portraits. Above all others, an ivory-skinned beauty captivates him. Her eyes ... one blue, the other yellow. That night they pursue Casimir in his dreams, as one burning question consumes him: Who is she? Thus begins Alev Croutier's lush, stirring adventure of the heart — a mesmerizing tale of forbidden passion, true love, and destiny. For Casimir will forsake his family, his vocation, and his country to find the object of his obsession. His journey will lead him across desert and sea, from the Royal Court in Paris to a sultan's palace in Istanbul. And there he will find the woman of his reveries, the woman with one blue eye, the other yellow. But in this city of passion, in a Palace of Tears, Casimir is about to discover what it will mean to make a dream real ... and what awaits him when his lover is set free. 1 His family wanted him to live in the country and cultivate grapes as the rest of them had for twenty generations, but Casimir de Châteauneuf had finer needs. Casimir was a dreamer. He wanted to find his destiny before his destiny could find him. The year was 1868. Europe was in a frenzy, seeking its spiritual opposite in the recesses of the Maghreb and the Levant. An obsession for Orientalism permeated everything, from pulp fiction and fashion to the grand canvases of Delacroix. But what intrigued everyone the most was that, after years of toil, the waters of the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean were about to merge in the Suez, a symbolic union of the East and the West, a union promising faster trade and immense fecundity. Casimir de Châteauneuf was thirty-five. He had already succeeded in turning grapes into gold. Casimir’s childhood was monotonously vast vineyards. His adolescence, dark cellars. The estate was called Grange du Souvenir. The town was called Châteauneuf-du-Pape. His wife was called Esperance. And his children were named Andre, Antoine, and Alphonse. Casimir knew every street, every house, every person in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. He had pursued all the vices that prevailed in the provinces. “I’m bored — bored to death. Bored as never before,” he confided to a friend. He set off for Paris to market the wine and to explore the city’s unique perversions. His great talent for assimilation and his country gentleman’s social ease quickly gained him entrance to the best men’s clubs and women’s salons. With dismissive panache, he grasped the n...
