Ayse's Trail

Joint winner of the One Big Book Launch, London 2014.

"Atulya K Bingham has breathed new life into one of Turkey's most beautiful surviving outposts of accessible mountain wilderness." Hugh Pope, Today's Zaman.

Ayşe, a 38-year-old mother from Istanbul, decides to tackle the Lycian Way in southern Turkey. She has never camped alone before. As she strikes out into Lycia’s ancient forests, she is on a quest to leave behind the past and find her own truth. But the Lycian Way is steeped in memories. Unknown to Ayşe, as she clambers over the precipices of the Mediterranean coast and through its lost cities, she is walking in someone else’s footsteps. 2500 years earlier, when Lycia was an independent state and worshipped the Goddess Leto, the Persian general Harpagos was stomping along the very same road in a bid to take over the ancient world.

Based on the true story of Ayşe Metin and the lost civilisation of ancient Lycia.