Seraglio: A Novel
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0385490461 / Publisher: Nan A. Talese, January 2003
A fictional portrait of Aimâee Dubucq, who was kidnapped at the age of thirteen and placed in a Turkish harem, traces her relationships with several powerful sultans and her place as an influential woman in the Ottoman Empire.
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At the age of thirteen, when en route from school in France to her home in Martinique, Aimee du Buc is kidnapped by Algerian pirates. Blond and blue-eyed, the graceful young girl is a valuable commodity, and she is soon placed in service in the Seraglio (sir-al-ee-o) - the Ottoman sultan's private world - in Topkapi Palace. As du Buc, renamed Nakshidil ("embroidered on the heart"), discovers the erotic secrets that win the hearts of kings and deftly learns the affairs of the empire, she struggles to retain her former identity, including her Christian faith. Over time, Nakshidil becomes the intimate of several powerful sultans: concubine to one, favored wife and confidante to another, and adoptive mother to a third. Her life often treads the tenuous line between sumptuous pleasures and mere survival until her final years, when she is awarded control of the harem as the valide, mother of the sultan.
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