Regards from the Dead Princess: Novel of a Life

A daughter recreates the life of her mother in a fictional account of the life of Princess Selma, who marries a wealthy Indian rajah

The history of Mourad's book is as strange as the story she tells. It is the true story of her mother Selma, an Ottoman princess, granddaughter of the last Sultan of Turkey, of her childhood in Beirut, her arranged marriage to an India rajah, her death in Paris. Selma's family was exiled from Turkey in 1918; she died in occupied France in 1941. The author, born shortly before Selma's death, only learned the facts of her parentage at the age of 20. From the bare bones of a life and four years of research, Mourad has reconstructed the lifestyle of the Ottoman harem, the mores of wealthy Muslims in Turkey and India. Selma is pictured--but never quite brought to life--as a spoiled child who was a pawn of her elders, whose preparation for adulthood has not equipped her to cope with her yearning for freedom. A bestseller in France, this lengthy and imperfect novel, marred as it is by awkward writing and complicated, often unnecessary, details of family feuds, becomes hauntingly memorable--especially the last section, in which Selma, accompanied only by an aging eunuch, struggles to survive in occupied Paris. 75,000 copy first printing; $75,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Based on facts she could uncover concerning her late mother, Selma, the author has re-created the story of a Turkish princess and granddaughter of Murad V, the last ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The result, reminiscent of a gothic TV tale, portrays the coming of age of the beautiful, young, expatriated princess in Beirut and her subsequent arranged marriage to a handsome rajah in India whom she does not meet before her wedding night. Forced to live a secluded life as an unaccepted stranger in the rajah's palace, the pampered, rebellious princess gains her freedom by fleeing to Paris at the time of the Nazi Occupation. There she gives birth to a daughter. This novel won't win any awards for literary skill, but with its opulent Oriental imagery it allows us to glimpse a distant and romantic world swept by change in a turbulent era.
- Paula I. Nielson, Brigham Young Univ. Libs., Provo, Ut.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.