The story of a man forced to choose between his country and his love
Farewell, My Beautiful Homeland is the story of a man from Salonika on the eve of the First World War who is forced to choose between his love for a woman and his love for his country as the Ottoman Empire is drawn into the war and faces collapse.
‘When discussing actual historical figures, one should stress that a novel must also be historically sound and accurate. That is not to say, of course,
that a historical novel has a duty to write history. However, unlike other authors in the genre, Ahmet U¨mit does not tamper with the course of history;
his plot and his storytelling are constrained by his characters’ story arcs. And this too in a novel that takes place during a highly complex historical
period in which it is extremely hard for one to maintain impartiality, a period in history in which it is increasingly difficult to distinguish between the
good and the bad and the innocent and the guilty.’ — Koray Saridog?an / Kalem Klavye
