Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe

"In 1688, five years after the failed Ottoman siege of Vienna, a young Muslim soldier surrendered to the Austrian army and became a prisoner of war. Osman of Timişoara would spend the next twelve years in captivity, at first under the cruelest and most inhuman conditions, and later in relative comfort as a servant of one of Vienna's most elite aristocratic families. Decades later, as an old man in Istanbul, Osman would write an account of his experiences. A historical source of unparalleled richness, a swashbuckling adventure story, and a moving literary meditation on selfhood, bondage, and the impossibility of returning home, Prisoner of the Infidels is a foundational text for Ottoman cultural history. This major milestone of Turkish literature is finally available to English-speaking readers for the first time"--