DINNER OF HERBS

Carla Grissmann

Extremely moving. Grissmann captures life in remote Anatolia with stark honesty and compassion'

- Paul Bowles

2001 UK First Edition

The genius of the countryside is one of solitude and silence - of summer insects and swelling fruit, a dog barking, a distant voice calling, muffled by the lustrous heat, remote on the edge of sound. The narrow river bed cutting under the vast cliff agglomeration of the pigeon houses of Uzengi runs through light and shadow. Through the silence reverberates suddenly the ubiquitous cooing of pigeons, echoing softly, suffocatingly, from side to side.

This travelogue is based on the author's remarkable experiences in remote Anatolia in the 1960s, when she spent the better part of a year living with a local peasant family. Time seems to have stood still and Carla Grissmann became to be seen as a valued friend to this tight-knit community. Grissmann depicts a people on the cusp of change - with an outsider's eye and an insider's sympathy and compassion, whether she is present at the birth of a child, attending a local festival or describing the lives and timeless rituals, the foods and the smells of a rural community about to be altered forever. The book also includes striking descriptions and photographs of the people and dwellings of Anatolia and the cave churches of Cappadocia.

'I was enthralled from the first pages until the end. Carla Grissmann describes her Turkish village with a perfect and genuine simplicity, a charming and a natural frankness. I shed some tears when she left it'

- Michel Déon of the Académie Française

An American by birth, Carla Grissmann (far left) has spent most of her life outside the United States.

She lived for many years in Morocco and has worked in France, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

She currently lives in London and returns every year to Afghanistan where she works on behalf of the Kabul Museum.

Arcadia Books

Travel

Paperback original