Nuri's Donkey

Untold Stories & Unwritten Rules of a Village in Turkey

Excerpts

Photographs

Nuri's Cyprus Donkeys

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When Allah wants a pauper to be happy
First he makes him lose his donkey
Then he lets him find it

A lost donkey and a collection of stories don't appear to have much in common. But the joy of finding each of them lies in the renewed appreciation for something vital that perhaps was taken for granted. For his livelihood's sake, a pauper mustn't lose his donkey; for humanity's sake, we mustn't lose our desire to listen to - and recognize ourselves in - the voices of others. Nuri's Donkey takes readers to a remote village in Turkey, where they will discover funny, bittersweet, and stranger-than-fiction tales about people who are not so different after all.

In 1982 I went to this village with my then-husband to meet my in-laws. None of the villagers had ever seen an American or heard a foreigner speaking Turkish, so I was quite a novelty. Each day curious onlookers would gather at the house to stare and ask me questions. My sisters-in-law, feeling obliged to protect me, would try to shoo them all away. Four-year-old Yucel declared again and again, "your eyes are green, your hair is white!" and asked if he could keep me in exchange for a toy truck.


Consulting & Photography by Fikri Kuchuk
English Renderings by Fikri Kuchuk & Emily Bunker
Illustrations by Tim Joyce