The Case of Cem

A sprawling novel of court intrigue and a personal exploration of emigration and loss.

It’s 1481, and as seen from the centers of power in Rome and Venice, the cultures of Europe are under threat from the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. When the exalted Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror dies his eldest son, Bayezid, takes the throne. However, discontented factions within the Ottoman army urge Mehmed’s second son, Cem, a well-educated and experienced warrior, to oppose his brother’s ascension, setting off a ruthless power struggle and forcing Cem into long years of exile, a pawn for European powers that are struggling to maintain the order they have imposed on the continent over the course of centuries.

The Case of Cem maintains lasting resonance for being a personal exploration of emigration and loss as told through the historical era during which the politics of the East and West were sketched out with utter clarity. These early lines of demarcation, as voiced through Christian and Muslim emissaries, power hungry rulers, unflinching warriors, and poets, have indelibly influenced the word as we know it today.

Angela Rodel is a literary translator who holds degrees from Yale and UCLA in linguistics and ethnomusicology. Eight Bulgarian novels in her translation have been published in the US and UK. She has received NEA and PEN translation grants. Her translation of Georgi Gospodinov’s Physics of Sorrow won the 2016 AATSEEL Prize for Literary Translation, and her translation of his novel Time Shelter made The New Yorker’s list of “Best Books of 2022.” A two-time Fulbright scholar, she now lives in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she serves as executive director of the Bulgarian-American Fulbright Commission.

Vera Mutafchieva (1929-2009) is one of the most influential Bulgarian writers of the twentieth century and undisputedly the most prominent female novelist in the Bulgarian canon. Mutafchieva is known for her intricate historical novels that offer nuanced insight into the complex layers of Balkan history, with its Slavic, Ottoman, and Byzantine Greek threads. The Case of Cem has been translated into dozens of languages; this is the first-ever English-language translation.