Author(s): Sophie Hardach

Fiction

This extraordinary literary debut from a prodigious young talent introduces an unlikely hero who'll prove impossible to forget... Both literary and accessible, The Registrar's Mannual for Detecting Forced Marriages will be S&S's Orange Prize contender for 2012 and will be submitted for all suitable prizes for debut fiction. Word of mouth buzz has already started. Perfect for fans of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and A Short History of Tractor's in Ukranian. This book will introduce us to a culture previously untouched by fiction - Kurdistan. Topical and timely: themes of identity, immigration and terrorism will ensure plenty of material for publicity and reading groups. Selim's first view of Europe is a vast, thick carpet of sewage. Swimming through it towards traffickers on the Italian shore, he parts Europe's soft defences with his bony chest before collapsing on the sand. Waiting for him is a truck, officially loaded with crates of tomatoes: the sunny taste of Puglia. Unofficially, secretly, illegally, the truck is loaded with Selim and his fellow refugees: the sunny taste of Kurdistan. Selim is unloaded in Germany, where this unlikely hero must plead his case for a bright new life in Europe, and political asylum. Examined by dentists and doctors, he's declared to be about thirteen and is assigned a date of birth. The clock starts ticking. Selim has until his eighteenth 'birthday' to find a way to get permanent residency status, or face deportation and imprisonment, torture or death back in Turkey. Fifteen years later, in a town hall in Paris, a Registrar receives both an unsettling visitor in her office, and an unsettling book in the post. The Registrar's Manual for Detecting Forced Marriages only fuels her suspicions surrounding an impending Kurdish wedding. Unsure how to intervene, her focus keeps drifting to one person alone: Selim.