Katharina Winkler

Filiz's story, being born into a gaggle of siblings, is the story of many women. They sleep outdoors, tend to their family's lambs, and take care of each other while their mother protects them from their father. With great delicacy, Katharina Winkler portrays women's struggles to survive their tormentors--who are often their own fathers, husbands, and brothers--in the face of patriarchal violence centered on misinterpretations of the meaning of love, religion, and honor.

Cárdeno Adorno

Blauschmuck

Des étoiles plein les yeux, l'innocente Filiz, treize ans, demande à l'arbre sacré de son village reculé de Turquie si le jeune Yunus deviendra son mari. La réponse ne tarde pas. Le mariage est un tourbillon. Il sera consommé dès la fin de la découpe du gâteau blanc meringue avec le rituel du drap taché du sang de la "petite vierge". Très vite, tout est noyé de bleu dans le quotidien de la jeune fille. Yunus s'emporte fréquemment contre son épouse, sous le toit de l'"araignée", la mare du garçon. Alternant silence dédaigneux et méchanceté tranchante, la belle-mère et le mari, fort de son droit d'époux, tissent une toile de terreur qui emprisonne Filiz, recluse dans sa condition de femme mariée. La sexualité conjugale est viol quotidien Les bijoux bleus ne tardent pas à recouvrir son corps, sur lequel, au gré des fractures, apparaissent bientôt des reliefs, fruits de la tyrannie exercée par Yunus. Et le ventre s'arrondit. Trois fois. Pour trois enfants issus d'un foyer à feu et à sang. Puis c'est l'exode vers l'Autriche. La rencontre avec la langue allemande, les jeans, l'apprentissage de la conduite, les femmes aux cheveux découverts et détachés. Une lueur d'espoir. Basé sur des faits réels, baigné de couleurs et de lumière, et d'une extraordinaire poésie, ce roman donne forme et voix à une violence comme ritualisée, trop souvent tue.

Les bijoux bleus

Now in paperback, Katharina Winkler's heartbreaking saga of a tenacious woman trapped in an abusive marriage. 'Blue jewellery' is private property. Not to be seen. Not to be talked about. It is worn like a bracelet around the wrists, on ribs, legs, arms. Blue jewellery is another name for the marks left on women's bodies, inflicted by the men around them. This novel tells the story of Filiz and Yunus. When Filiz meets Yunus, he is young and beautiful, and Filiz is proud that he wants her. Against her father's wishes, they marry when she is thirteen. Yunus is her entire universe, all encompassing, all powerful. Soon after the wedding, Filiz's dream of living in the West with her husband, of escaping their small village in Anatolia for freedom and autonomy, comes crashing down around her. Yunus, only a few years older than his bride, turns their marriage into a prison of dependency and violence. Trapped in her mother-in-law's house, Filiz is subjected to physical and mental abuse, forced to veil herself and treated as a house slave. When she becomes pregnant, Filiz seems to have reached her breaking point. But she endures. When Yunus moves his young family first to Istanbul and then to Austria, the life he had once promised her seems to be within reach. But there is no escaping the spiral of violence and love, which, to Filiz, have become inseparable. Katharina Winkler's powerful story of a marriage dominated by violence gives voice to a tenacious young woman whose will to survive is never broken.

Blue Jewellery

'Blue jewellery' is private property. Not to be seen. Not to be talked about. It is worn like a bracelet around the wrists, on ribs, legs, arms. Blue jewellery is another name for the marks left on women's bodies, inflicted by the men around them. This novel tells the story of Filiz and Yunus. When Filiz meets Yunus, he is young and beautiful, and Filiz is proud that he wants her. Against her father's wishes, they marry when she is thirteen. Yunus is her entire universe, all encompassing, all powerful. Soon after the wedding, Filiz's dream of living in the West with her husband, of escaping their small village in Anatolia for freedom and autonomy, comes crashing down around her. Yunus, only a few years older than his bride, turns their marriage into a prison of dependency and violence. Trapped in her mother-in-law's house, Filiz is subjected to physical and mental abuse, forced to veil herself and treated as a house slave. When she becomes pregnant, Filiz seems to have reached her breaking point. But she endures. When Yunus moves his young family first to Istanbul and then to Austria, the life he had once promised her seems to be within reach. But there is no escaping the spiral of violence and love, which, to Filiz, have become inseparable. Katharina Winkler's powerful story of a marriage dominated by violence gives voice to a tenacious young woman whose will to survive is never broken.

Katharina Winkler

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