Leyla The Story of a Kurdish Princess

“Perhaps the moon stood in the sky to watch this wonderful young girl, the pride of a lineage. Does he remember his ancestors who brought the lords to their knees and the flags that crowned the domes of the hundred cities they captured? Does he still hear the shaking of the mountains where the horses are galloping?”
Count Robert de Beauplan, La Liberté d'Egypt

"He is dancing; Its pearly body, formed in the hidden shadow of a sea cliff, is slender like a young palm tree. While watching him, a gazelle with blue eyelids comes to mind. While dancing to the tunes pouring from the lute, she resembles a young mare leaping with the magic of the sands. Her beautiful, naked and white feet look like they are kneaded with snow and soaked in moonlight.

“This is the story of Princess Leyla Bedirhan: The daughter of a very powerful lord of Kurdistan, one day she left her legendary country and decided to take over the world by expressing the dreams of the old artists of that land through dance.”
Jean Masson, Candide

If the Botan water had changed its course and the course of history, the story of Bedirhani Leyla could have been found in the branches of a family tree hand-written on raw silk, in a manuscript with golden sunbursts and rose decorations, the page edges framed with gilded lines. It was up to Leyla, the name's return to the East, to write her story. He also wove the story with words caught in the magic of writing, with the regret of voluntary abandonments and postponements in his heart. Leyla's life, with its secret and mystery, remained beyond the story, in words that could not be captured by the magic of writing.