Gleb Shulpyakov Книга Синана - Kniga Sinana The Sinan Book Novel. Ad Marginem, Moscow 2005, 252 p. Russian-Turkish Friendship Association Prize 2006 A young Moscow journalist journeys through Turkey to research the life and buildings of Sinan, the famous architect of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and architect of the great mosques of Istanbul. While he is working on Sinan’s biography, however, the hero stumbles across his own unknown past. Twenty years before his father had left his family for Turkey and a Turkish mistress. On his travels through Tureky he is aware of how the country, the people and even the architect Sinan whom he admires remain alien to him. Yet he has to overcome this barrier in order to understand his father and to find himself. As if in a compulsion to have history repeat itself he ends up in a love affair with a Turkish girl and runs the risk of completely losing himself in the labyrinth of Istanbul. The novel is an initiation at the crossroads between art and life, East and West, past and present, Christianity and Islam.