Book and the Veil: Escape from an Istanbul Harem

In this story of scandal and escape, Turkish-born writer Yeshim Ternar uses her skills-and her imagination-as a writer of fiction to conjure up the world of her great-grandmother's generation in the harems of the declining Ottoman Empire. The Book and The Veil takes the form of a dialogue between Ternar and turn of the century English writer Grace Ellison who befriended the two sisters Zeyneb and Melek Hanoums in the Palace of Istanbul. Facing persecution by the sultan, the two sisters made their escape to the West where each made their own mark as writers.

Yeshim Ternar has entered the harems of her female ancestors. As a Turkish woman who has chosen to live in the West, and then gone back several times, she identifies with both Grace Ellison and the two sisters. Like them she has transgressed the boundaries of propriety in her explorations and rebellions. Like them she has found enlightenment, emancipation, and discovery in the process of lifting the veil-and in the writing of a book.