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The Endless Country

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What to expect

This audio edition includes an Epilogue read by the author, Sami Kent.

'Captivating. Kent effortlessly weaves travels that are close to his heart into a bigger story of Turkey’s past and present' – Mishal Husain
'A rich, spellbinding book: dense with people, stories, history, colour, lived experience. [Sami Kent] is a beguiling and charming guide through the complexities of Turkey. The book is alive on every page' – Neel Mukherjee, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Lives of Others

The Endless Country takes a journey through Turkey’s past – the nation the author’s father left decades ago and he returns to as a young man.

It is not about Erdogan or Atatürk, the two towering Presidents who have book-ended that history, and at times have appeared impossible to escape. Instead Sami Kent’s book goes deep beyond them, revealing a history as rich, layered and absurd as his family’s favourite dessert, künefe: a shredded wheat pastry with a core of melted cheese, a topping of pistachios, and a drowning of syrup.

From tiny weightlifters to the world’s biggest prison, from a failed socialist commune to a wildly successful orchid ice cream, the book is a tribute to the sheer bewildering diversity of Turkey’s past: its people, their ideas and their struggles.

Critics Review

The Endless Country is a resoundingly successful attempt to tell Turkey’s history – the first 100 years since the founding of the republic – through Kent’s own story of coming back to the land of his father. But more than that: by talking to people and visiting places involved with each decade of that century, Kent brings the past alive
Guardian
This is surely how history should be told – human, fun, alive
Telegraph
Captivating. Kent effortlessly weaves travels that are close to his heart into a bigger story of Turkey’s past and present
Mishal Husain
Sami Kent's journey in search of his father's country yields a rich, spellbinding book: dense with people, stories, history, colour, lived experience. He is a beguiling and charming guide through the complexities of Turkey. The book is alive on every page.
Neel Mukherjee, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Lives of Others
A must-read for anyone who wants to understand Turkey . . . from a touching family biography to a wonderful travelogue to an excellent treatise of Turkey’s rich and complicated political history
Soner Çagaptay, author of Erdogan's Empire
Turkey's complicated first century comes to life through Sami Kent's judiciously chosen stories, which he tells with compassion and depth alongside his search for the meaning of his own heritage . . . It is hard to find a more complete insight into a country that few writers really know, and even fewer can explain.
Hannah Lucinda Smith, author of Erdogan Rising
[Kent] leverages his journalistic acumen to offer a vivid and nuanced portrait of the nation . . .
The Daily Star
An insightful, moving and beautifully crafted portrait of a nation
Literary Review

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