The Fisherman and His Son

The Fisherman and His Son (2021)

Fisherman and Son tells about the most painful and great drama of recent years, “immigration” through fishermen Mustafa, Mesude and baby Samir. The marriage of Mustafa and Mesude, who was familiar with dead human bodies from the news they watched on TV in their warm home, gets complicated with a half-dead baby they found in the sea.

Fisherman and Son tells about the Aegean’s history and today, about fish farms and the ecological destruction caused by companies attacking the mountains and coasts with the greed of profit. Beyond that, it focuses on immigrants’ journey towards the unknown and their efforts to survive or die. This book by Livaneli is a contemporary epope on family, love, parenting, children, women’s solidarity, friendship, migration, and nature.

By Otherpress:

In this humane, affecting tale of a Turkish couple who lose their child and find another, the internationally bestselling author of Disquiet explores the ethical questions surrounding immigration.

Fisherman Mustafa and his wife, Mesude, are devastated with grief for their son Deniz, who was lost at sea at seven years old. One day, Mustafa discovers the bodies of a woman and man in the water, likely refugees from Syria, Pakistan, or Afghanistan drowned as they attempted to reach Greece. Nearby, he also finds a baby boy, tied to a small inflatable boat and miraculously alive. Mustafa and Mesude at first welcome the child as a precious gift, a second Deniz, but when a woman appears, claiming to be his mother, they must make a painful decision.

Through their heart-wrenching story, Zülfü Livaneli sensitively evokes the struggles of migrants seeking a safer life in unknown, often hostile lands. In the process, he elucidates the history and culture of the Aegean, and the ecological destruction wreaked by corporations in the region

The Fisherman and His Son has been published in Greek in 2023 by Patakis