Historical novel
Kızılcık Şerbeti: An Ottoman Story
A historical novel about the importance of making peace with our past. During the most capricious period of late Ottoman history, the Kasidecizâde family — which gave many members to the scholarly ulema class — is tossed between reward and punishment according to the political currents of the day. The real price of the family's intrigues is paid not by the elders who caused them, but by their innocent children and grandchildren.
About the novel
Kızılcık Şerbeti follows the Kasidecizâde family — long-standing members of the Ottoman scholarly class — as they are swept between praise and punishment by the political currents of the late empire.
The true cost of the family's intrigues falls on its innocent children and grandchildren rather than on the elders responsible. The novel argues that remembering, and making peace with the past, is not a burden but a necessity.
Fiction built on archives
The novel draws on a long-running genealogical investigation spanning more than 250 family and state documents — Ottoman-language records, official correspondence, land registries, newspaper archives and historical maps. The traces of figures such as Kasidecizâde Süleyman Sırrı Efendi, Kasidecizâde Ziya Molla and Mehmed İzzet AlSalah were reassembled through that research.