Young American Lee, restless and newly separated, travels to Istanbul in search of her grandmother's past. As a German Jew, Helene Bischoff escaped persecution by the Nazi regime in the 1930s. At the time, Kemal Atatürk generously offered Jews asylum in Turkey. He had his sights set primarily on intellectuals, engineers, doctors and lawyers who were supposed to help drive Turkey's radical modernization forward.

In Istanbul, this historic and exuberant megacity between Orient and Occident, Lee discovers that her grandmother's former companion and temporary lover, the journalist and agent Georg Naumann, is still alive, well over a hundred years old. What connects him to Helene and maybe even to her, Lee? In this exciting, multifaceted novel we experience the violence of history, the power of love and Istanbul as a labyrinth and salvation. Knowledgeable and sensual - the new, great novel by Matthias Göritz.