Mocked by shallow juniors at work and derided by many members of his family, he barely seems to exist. Wonderful description of life in Berlin at that time and also of what Turkey was like at that period.

The narrator has fallen on hard times, and it is only with the help of a crass and belittling former classmate that he is able to find work as a clerk at a firm trading in lumber.The city’s crowded streets, thriving arts scene, passionate politics and seedy cabarets provide the backdrop for a chance meeting with a woman, which will haunt him for the rest of his life, in this emotionally powerful, intensely atmospheric and touchingly profound novel about new beginnings and the unfathomable nature of the human soul. Sabahattin Ali's daughter, Filiz Ali, in an interview with BBC, has stated that she found Maria was inspired by a real life acquaintance of Sabahattin. Raif is intensely in love with Maria, but he is not sure if she feels the same way, so he holds back. The works for which he was most admired in his time were imbued by his dreams for the common man, and rooted in his knowledge of the injustices they suffered. Was it Raif's peculiarities that made me feel seen, or Maria's reluctance to believe in the possibility of companionship?

It is revealed that Maria grew up without a father and therefore plays a male-like, dominant role in the relationship; while Raif is more naive. In one of her last letters, Maria says she has got a surprise that she will reveal when they see each other face to face.recreates a vanished era and dramatises a doomed relationship, and does so with verve, depth and poignancy. And what a pity that is: a dash of curiosity is all it takes to stumble upon treasures we never expected. There, he finds out that Maria was quite ill, and since her mother left their home to go to Prague, she was hospitalized.

She reveals that Maria has died from a sickness nine years ago, and she left a baby girl, whose father was a "Turkish man she refused to name" and leaves. We follow the life of Raif during the 1920s and 1930s while he lived in Berlin, Istanbul and Ankara. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. The gap between hope and reality, art and ordinary life, has been explored in many other novels, but rarely with the unaffected simplicity of Madonna in a Fur Coat . Recreates a vanished era and dramatises a doomed relationship, and does so with verve, depth and poignancy.Madonna in a Fur Coat is a novel written by Turkish author Sabahattin Ali that was published in 1943. When his friend reads it instead, he meets a younger Raif, sent to Berlin by his father to study the manufacture of soap. Only a few years have passed since Turkey and Germany fought together on the losing side in the first world war, so he is warmly received by the pension’s other residents. Sabahattin Ali (1907-1948) was born in the Ottoman town of Egridere (now Ardino in southern Bulgaria). In the realm of books, there are some that I'd shout from the rooftops for everyone to read, and then there are the ones I clutch close to my heart, gatekeep them selfishly, just for myself.