This was a scene always likely to happen between a girl child destined to take everything seriously—lonely and unhappy but unaware of it—and an old maid who had withered away. With one difference: It came true.

In her highly anticipated novel following The Pomegranate Tree, Nazan Bekiroğlu brings us a nostalgic story set in Turkey between the 1920s and 1970s.

Mücellâ is the novel of a girl the same age as the young Republic; a story of forgotten fabrics, scents, habits, needle lace, loves left half-finished or completed, and women oscillating between watching life and living it. These are times when life flowed slower, and the rhythm of existence was decided in the quiet backstreets. Times when chickpea coffee drunk in the light of a gas lamp left a bitter taste in the mouth.

In the background, while Turkey passes through many turbulences, Mücellâ is a young girl who has been embroidering her dowry for as long as she can remember. She is someone who withdraws from life step by step without even noticing it... Waiting without knowing what she is waiting for... Then, one day, wishing to return to the life she remained on the fringes of with one last effort...

Amidst hyacinth-scented white pillowcases, cross-stitched napkins, scalloped towels, and dowry chests, this is Mücellâ's pure and striking story.