Inshallah

To Viviane Wayne, Turkey was at once a mystery and a familiar part of family life. Born in America to Sephardic parents whose families had emigrated from Spain to Turkey 500 years ago, she knew Turkey as a land of exotic foods, elaborate carpets, and the philosophy of inshallah -- "if God wills." In 1977, and again in 1991, Viviane and her husband traveled to Turkey to discover the land that had shaped her parents, to learn about her father's early life, and to find the source of inshallah. They found a land of beauty and excitement, full of crowded bazaars and rug dealers, cities rich with history, still answering the call of the muezzin. They met family members who were eager to share their hearth and home and their stories of generations past. Most importantly, they found the old house where her father had grown up, and in it a trove of old letters and photographs containing much of her family's untold story. Book jacket.