Letters from Izmir

A young doctor, Miss Pelagia Antoniadis, arrives in Izmir (Turkey) in late twentieth century with a mission: her late grandmother had asked her to search inside the orthodox church of Saint Voukolos and retrieve the letters and diary she hid there in 1922, the year Izmir was destroyed by the Turks. Pelagia retrieves the letters and diary and visits a restaurant to examine her findings. There, an old wealthy businessman, Mr. Osman, suffers a heart attack and Pelagia saves him. The next day, he invites her to his mansion and Pelagia discovers how closely Osman's destiny was aligned with that of her own grandmother. Osman not only knew her grandmother but he was also in love with her back in the early twentieth century. Osman asks Pelagia to stay with him. She agrees and meets his grandson, Alper, with whom she falls in love. In the course of her stay in Izmir, Pelagia reads her grandmother's diary and letters, the majority of which were written in Izmir before the big disaster of 1922. Through them, she becomes acquainted with the old city of Izmir and the story of her grandmother's great love for her husband, the military physician Alexander Kallergis. The letters and diary travel her to her grandmother's tempestuous relationship with Alexander, the destruction of the city, and her exile in Greece. As a young wife, her grandmother loses everything in the course of the destruction: her home, her baby, even her husband, who becomes imprisoned and loses contact with his new bride. The young woman is deported to Greece alongside her only surviving relative, her aunt Mary. And when she manages to settle down, she is ready to implement her plan: she leaves Athens and she returns to Asia Minor. Her goal is to find the love of her life, Alexander. To achieve it, she sets out on the biggest adventure of her life. What awaits her is a march to the unknown ... maybe even to death. . This is a compelling story that will excite the reader and make him change his view about love, war, Izmir and Asia Minor.