The Blacksmith's Daughter

Part one of the Anatolian Blues trilogy

Told with great affection for his characters, Selim Özdoğan's trilogy traces out the life of Gül, a Turkish girl who grows up in 1950s Anatolia and then moves to Germany as a migrant worker. Book one details her initially idyllic childhood, ruptured by her mother's early death. Ever close to her loving father, Gül grows into a warm-hearted, hard-working young woman.

The Blacksmith's Daughter is a novel full of carefree summers and hard winters, old wives' tales and young people's ambitions – the melancholy beauty and pain of an ordinary life.

Selim Özdoğan was born in Germany in 1971 and has been publishing his prose since 1995. He has won numerous prizes and grants and taught creative writing at the University of Michigan.

Ayça Türkoğlu is a writer and literary translator based in North London. Her translation interests include the literature of the Turkish diaspora in Germany and minority literatures in Turkey.

Katy Derbyshire translates contemporary German writers including Olga Grjasnowa, Sharon Dodua Otoo and Heike Geissler. She teaches literary translation and also heads the V&Q Books imprint.