Harem
Colin Falconer
This is the astonishing story of Suleiman, the one they called the Magnificent, and the woman he loved. From medieval Venice to the slave markets of Algiers, from the mountains of Persia to the forbidden seraglio of the Ottoman's greatest sultan, this is a story of passion and intrigue in a world where nothing is really as it seems.
Suleiman controlled an empire of thirty million people, encompassing twenty different languages. As a man he was an enigma; he conquered all who stand against him with one of the world's first full time professional armies - yet he liked to write poetry. He ravaged half of Europe yet he rebuilt Istanbul in marble. He had teams of torturers and assassins ready to unleash at a whim; yet history remembers him as a great lawmaker.
'Harem' literally means 'Forbidden': Forbidden to men. Once the Sultan was the only man - the only complete man - who could pass through its iron-studded doors. But what was that world really like?
For a woman living in the Harem the only way out was to somehow find her way into the Sultan's bed and bear him a son. But the young Sultan was often away at war and on his return he often neglected his harem for his favourite wife. But one young Russian concubine was not content to let fate decide her life. She was clever and she was ruthless. And she had a plan.
Into this world are drawn two unforgettable characters; a beautiful young Italian noblewoman, captured by corsairs and brought to the Harem as a concubine; and the eunuch who once loved her, long ago, in Venice.
Loved her? He never stopped.
Far from the imagined world of steamy baths, and languorous sensuality, the Harem is a world of intrigue and despair. This is a story of a man who has everything striving to find a measure of happiness; and of a slave who has nothing who wants only to be a better man.
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