The Mapmaker's Daughter

by Katherine Nouri Hughes

Overview

Narrating the spectacular story of her rise to the pinnacle of imperial power, Queen Mother Nurbanu, on her sickbed, is determined to understand how her bond with the greatest of all Ottoman sultans, Suleiman the Magnificent, shaped her destiny – not only as the wife of his successor but as the appointed enforcer of one of the Empire’s most crucial and shocking laws. Nurbanu spares nothing as she dissects the desires and motives that have propelled and harmed her; as she considers her role as devoted and manipulative mother; as she reckons her relations with the women of the Harem; and as she details the fate of the most sophisticated observatory in the world. Nurbanu sets out to “see” the causes and effects of her loves and choices, and she succeeds by means of unflinching candor – right up to the last shattering revelation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781883285708
Publisher:	Delphinium
Publication date:	08/08/2017
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	331,401
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

KATHERINE NOURI HUGHES, Iraqi-Irish by birth, attended Princeton Universitywhere she received a Masters Degree in Near Eastern Studies and where she serves on that department’s advisory council. After living in Cairo and traveling extensively in the region she returned to the U.S. and was a communications executive in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. She has edited two books on k-12 education, and serves on the boards of the American Universityin Cairo, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and WNET/13, the public television station. She lives in New York City and Princeton, New Jersey and has two daughters and two grandchildren. The Mapmaker’s Daughter is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

06/26/2017
In her debut novel, Hughes fleshes out the historical record of Cecilia Baflo Veniero, who would later be known as Nurbanu, Queen Mother of the Ottoman Sultans. Nurbanu recalls her dramatic life from her deathbed: born illegitimate in Venice and orphaned at a young age, she benefits from her father’s nobility and the education she received from her mother during her early years after she is enslaved by Turkish corsairs. Singled out by Suleiman the Magnificent and given to first one and then a second of his sons, Nurbanu receives opportunities for education as well as access to power. She uses her position to affect the nation’s political direction, protect her family, and, most notably, oppose a barbaric law designed to maintain authoritarian control of the Ottoman Empire. Hughes adeptly mixes fictionalized elements with historical details. However, the narrative—told in the form of a deathbed memoir—often reads more like a history textbook than a novel. Depictions are sometimes gritty and graphic and may be disturbing to some readers. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

[An] absorbing historical novel… compellingly interlaces public history and intimate conjecture.

The New Yorker

Voice — the great, elusive necessity in all historical fiction—is rapturous and irresistible in The Mapmaker's Daughter. Katherine Hughes's novel just seems to talk to us, and in so doing makes these titanic events seem human and natural, and thus all-the-more preoccupying. A very impressive book, indeed.”—Richard Ford

“In The Mapmaker’s Daughter, Katherine Hughes introduces us to Cecilia-Nurbanu, an astonishing girl who becomes a woman of immense power in the Ottoman Empire. Lost to history, Hughes retrieves her and through a stunning act of imagination takes us into her consciousness as she finally reckons with a decision that in the light of the present seems unspeakable. Hughes’s novel is a potent reminder of what even today a woman may encounter when she becomes, as Nurbanu becomes, an accessory to power.”—Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice

“Hughes adeptly mixes fictionalized elements with historical details.”—Publishers Weekly

“Hughes has richly imagined the life of a remarkable historical figure. . . readers who enjoy in-depth historical detail and court intrigue will be riveted.”—Library Journal

“An impressively engaging and consistently entertaining read from beginning to end, The Mapmaker's Daughter reveals author Katherine Nouri Hughes's genuine storytelling gifts. … Unreservedly recommended as an enduringly popular addition to community library Historical Fiction collections…”—Midwest Book Review

“When the fiction is good, the history is usually distorted, and on the rare occasions when the history is good, the fiction is usually less interesting than the straight historical narrative. This novel is a remarkable exception . . . part history, part fiction, it is enthralling.”—Bernard Lewis, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Emeritus, Princeton University

“Of all the appetites the lust for power is the strongest—and most dangerous. This is a lively, absorbing and utterly convincing self-portrait of a woman who came under the influence of the greatest of all Ottoman sultans—with tragic consequences.”—Edmund White, author of Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris

“Based on a historical event of rare improbability—the rise in the sixteenth century of a daughter of Venice to the rank of Queen Mother in the mighty Ottoman Empire—this novel is a gorgeous feat of imagination, a stellar work by a gifted writer.”—Arnold Rampersand, Stanford University, author of Ralph Ellison

“The Mapmaker's Daughter is an immersive, beautifully-woven narrative that dissects the paradoxes of female power and the particularities of the 16th century Ottoman Empire.”—Dr. Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War

From the Publisher

A heartbreaking read that marries a strong story arc with a dedication to historical details.

Booklist (starred)

Voice — the great, elusive necessity in all historical fiction—is rapturous and irresistible in The Mapmaker's Daughter. Katherine Hughes's novel just seems to talk to us, and in so doing makes these titanic events seem human and natural, and thus all-the-more preoccupying. A very impressive book, indeed.

Richard Ford

In The Mapmaker’s Daughter, Katherine Hughes introduces us to Cecilia-Nurbanu, an astonishing girl who becomes a woman of immense power in the Ottoman Empire. Lost to history, Hughes retrieves her and through a stunning act of imagination takes us into her consciousness as she finally reckons with a decision that in the light of the present seems unspeakable. Hughes’s novel is a potent reminder of what even today a woman may encounter when she becomes, as Nurbanu becomes, an accessory to power.

Carol Gilligan

Of all the appetites the lust for power is the strongest—and most dangerous. This is a lively, absorbing and utterly convincing self-portrait of a woman who came under the influence of the greatest of all Ottoman sultans—with tragic consequences.

Edmund White

An impressively engaging and consistently entertaining read from beginning to end, The Mapmaker's Daughter reveals author Katherine Nouri Hughes's genuine storytelling gifts. … Unreservedly recommended as an enduringly popular addition to community library Historical Fiction collections…

Midwest Book Review

When the fiction is good, the history is usually distorted, and on the rare occasions when the history is good, the fiction is usually less interesting than the straight historical narrative. This novel is a remarkable exception . . . part history, part fiction, it is enthralling.

Bernard Lewis

Based on a historical event of rare improbability—the rise in the sixteenth century of a daughter of Venice to the rank of Queen Mother in the mighty Ottoman Empire—this novel is a gorgeous feat of imagination, a stellar work by a gifted writer.

Arnold Rampersand

The Mapmaker's Daughter is an immersive, beautifully-woven narrative that dissects the paradoxes of female power and the particularities of the 16th century Ottoman Empire.

Dr. Amanda Foreman

[An] absorbing historical novel… compellingly interlaces public history and intimate conjecture.

The New Yorker

A heartbreaking read that marries a strong story arc with a dedication to historical details.

Booklist (starred review)

2017-05-15
A captured Venetian encounters a strange blend of civilization and barbarism as she attains the highest rank possible for a woman in the Ottoman Empire.As Nurbanu, nee Cecilia Baffo Veniero, queen mother and former sultaness, lies dying, she writes down the story of her life. Born of a never-legalized union between a Venetian mapmaking prodigy, Violante, and a nobleman, Cecilia is doted on by her maternal grandfather and studies science with her mother's teacher, Egnatius. This idyll is interrupted by Violante's death by drowning. At age 12, Cecilia is sent to live on her father's fiefdom, Paros island. Shortly thereafter, invading Turks abduct her. Arriving at the harem of the Ottoman emperor, Suleiman the Magnificent, Cecilia, renamed Nurbanu, finds that she has been fast-tracked for success in her new home: apparently her captors are well-aware of her erudition and her ties to the upper echelons of their most intractable foe, Venice. With Suleiman's blessing, she is schooled alongside the crown prince, Mehmed, with whom she falls in love. When Mehmed is killed by wasps, Suleiman appoints Nurbanu the consort of his next heir, Selim, and although the prince is grossly corpulent and a drunkard, affection grows between them. When she gives birth to a son, Murad, she is promoted to wife and endowed with a huge fortune. When death ends Suleiman's 46-year reign, Selim becomes sultan, and Nurbanu, now sultaness, is embroiled in the Ottoman dynasty's ruthless method of ensuring orderly succession: brothers and half brothers of the heir apparent must be killed, a rule complicated by the existence of harems. Suleiman had commanded Nurbanu to make sure Murad would go unchallenged; thus when Selim starts impregnating concubines, it is her job to eliminate any male children. The resulting moral quandary still plagues Nurbanu on her deathbed. Although Nurbanu is portrayed as a strong woman, the constraints of her milieu rob her of true choice, which renders her struggles less compelling and the plot less suspenseful. However, Hughes marshals her extensive research well, mining the known facts for sensory details that never fail to engage. A fascinating evocation of the major players of the Ottoman renaissance.

Kirkus Reviews