Blue Jewellery by Katharina Winkler

Title: Blue Jewellery

Author: Katharina Winkler

Release Date: February 8, 2016

Length: 152 pages

Genre: General Fiction

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**** Review****

Honestly, I have started writing this review several times and I didn’t manage to put all my thoughts into words. Blue Jewellery is a book that left me sleepless last night. Not because it’s big, it’s really small, actually. Undoubtedly, it is a book that can be read in two hours, but in terms of content, it’s huge! Content that shook me and brought tears to my eyes. A story that brings images in my head long after I finished the last lines.

This is a novel based on a true story, depicting the fate of a girl named Filiz, whose carefree childhood is taken from her and replaced by fear, silence, and submission. She dreams of changes, she dreams of honest smiles, but will she be able to fulfill her dreams?

To begin with, Filiz is just a girl when she realizes the reality and fate of the Anatolian woman. She lives in a valley where hundreds of women live adorned with blue jewelry, some light blue, some dark. The blue jewelry, the marks left on women’s bodies, inflicted by the men around them—their fathers, their brothers, their husbands. From the moment she falls in love with Yunus, Filiz dreams of only one thing – a new life with her loved one. A life that is so different from the previous one, away from everyone, in which she will wear jeans. Yes, jeans! Can you imagine that?

And indeed, Filiz’s new life begins with the beloved, different from the previous one, away from everyone. But those jeans she dreamed about… Will she ever wear them?

Filiz, a girl who becomes a woman overnight, soon to be a mother of three, always richly adorned with blue jewelry, hidden under her burqa, carrying the weight of her burden – never stopped dreaming of jeans. Will she ever wear them?

I honestly didn’t even notice the writing style. Maybe it was eloquent, maybe simple. But I felt the message deeply. Each skillfully composed sentence touched me and often brought tears to my eyes.

The character of Filiz is masterfully built. Young, and naive, she falls in love and runs away with an older man who destroys her and makes her feel miserable. We feel her pain as shock and anger consume us while we witness her destiny, her humiliation. She is a slave who falls apart every day, and her real audience is her loneliness. Only she witnesses the inner urge to scream. Only she has the proof of what happens when someone lets out a scream, either of rage, or sadness, or pain.

A warrior of a woman, with three innocent souls emerging from her womb, she breathes for them each new day even though she is already dead inside.

Blue Jewellery by Katharina Winkler is a small book, that could be read in two hours, yet a book that can never be forgotten! And definitely a book that everyone should read.

Finally let’s think about Filiz- she might be your friend, neighbor, relative, colleague, cousin, sister, mother… It might be you. Maybe it’s me. Maybe Filiz is from my neighborhood. Speak up! Ask for help! Put on some jeans!