“A poignant coming-of-age tale, drenched in disillusionment. 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. . . . The translation by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe is crisp, capturing Ali’s directness and clarity of language.” —William Armstrong, Times Literary Supplement

“Offsets inter-war Berlin’s decadent dazzle with bouts of shade, murk and melancholy . . . recreates a vanished era and dramatizes a doomed relationship, and does so with verve, depth and poignancy. The result is a miniature masterpiece.” —Malcolm Forbes, The National

“A gorgeously melancholic romance . . . a cautionary tale certain to beguile.” —Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times

"The surprise bestseller…Read, loved and wept over by men and women of all ages."—Guardian

"A rare point of common cultural experience for a deeply polarized country." —New York Times

Sabahattin Ali was born in 1907 in the Ottoman town of Egridere (now Ardino in southern Bulgaria) and was killed on the Bulgarian border in 1948 as he attempted to leave Turkey. A teacher, writer, and journalist, he owned and edited a popular newspaper called Marko Pasa and was imprisoned twice for his political views.