Engagement
Synopsis:
Halil, a boy of 16 living in a village in Mardin, in southeast Turkey, needs to get cologne for his cousin’s engagement ceremony taking place that evening. Since there’s none left in the village market, Halil walks to the next village to get some. Meanwhile, his cousin’s little sister Maral needs to visit every house in the village and knock on a total of 30 doors to remind everyone of the evening’s ceremony.
Halil, a boy of 16 living in a village in Mardin, in southeast Turkey, needs to get cologne for his cousin’s engagement ceremony taking place that evening. Since there’s none left in the village market, Halil walks to the next village to get some. Meanwhile, his cousin’s little sister Maral needs to visit every house in the village and knock on a total of 30 doors to remind everyone of the evening’s ceremony.
The story lasts from 7 in the morning to 11 at night, over the course of a searing hot day followed by an ominous night of sandstorms and fog. Peace and the joy of celebration are ever-elusive in this blood-red tale where nothing is as it seems.
*The novel is based on a mass murder “known as Bilge Village Mass Murder” that took place in a village in Mardin, a Kurdish city in southeast of Turkey, in May 2009. Over 40 people including women and children were murdered with automatic weapons at the ceremony, men whilst praying. Perpetrators and victims belong to the same family, they’re blood related.