Synopsis

A brilliantly inventive novel on the idea of India as a nation, seen through the eyes of a Turkish intellectual and freedom fighter.

Turkish freedom fighter, author, and citizen of the world, Halide Edib travels to India in 1935 to deliver a series of lectures, fulfilling a promise made long ago to Indian nationalist, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari. In Delhi, her host’s rambling house in Daryaganj is a place of inclusive hospitality and of historical meetings. Here, Halide meets many people central to India’s own independence struggle, specially Mahatma Gandhi, with whom she has several conversations.

Before she departs, Halide promises to write a memoir of her time in India. When she does that, she says in her book that India was nearer to her ‘soul climate’ than any country not her own. The present narrator of Soul Climate peruses that memoir, and other writings by Halide, wondering what else she might have seen and remembered. The narrator reconstructs Halide’s time in India, seeing a nation in the making through her eyes.

In another strand of the novel that is pure fiction, three young women, close friends and cousins, who are attending Halide’s lectures in Delhi, are each at a turning point in their lives, taking first steps on their separate new paths. To each of them Halide’s words and personality speak differently, and they form their world views even as they get swept up in the process of their coming of age.

Soul Climate deftly interweaves memoir and fiction, realism and imagination. Through it, we consider afresh such ideas as nationhood, religion, idealism, what makes us, and what divides us and how we unite.

LIST ALL REVIEWS and printed interviews Soul Climate

“A book of ideas.” Interview. Ranjani Govind. Avadhi.6.3.2026 https://avadhimag.in/a-book-of-ideas/
“The Threat of History…” Asma Rasheed, The Book Review India, March 2026, Vol 50, No 3 https://www.thebookreviewindia.org/the-threat-of-history/
“‘Soul Climate’: How Halide Edib’s search for belonging in 1930s India inspires Inez Baranay’s meditation on nationhood”. Anubha Mishra. Indian Express 23.2.2016 https://indianexpress.com/article/books-and-literature/soul-climate-halide-edibs-1930s-india-inez-baranay-nationhood-10543382/
“‘Soul Climate’ by Inez Baranay: The connect that isn’t” By R Umamaheshwari. The Tribune 19 January 2026 https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/book-reviews/soul-climate-by-inez-baranay-the-connect-that-isnt/ [paywall]
“Citizens of the world | Review of Soul Climate” Meenakshi Shivram The Hindu 23 January, 2026 https://www.thehindu.com/books/review-soul-climateinez-baranay-india-turkey-halide-edib/article70514061.ece
“In Inez Baranay’s new novel, three Muslim women meet a Turkish freedom fighter in Gandhi’s India” Somak Ghoshal Mint 28 December 2025
https://www.livemint.com/mint-lounge/art-and-culture/india-turkey-gandhi-halide-edib-inez-baranay-soul-climate-11766815709446.html

Conversation with Bhumika Anand in Bangalore 28 Dec 2025 video https://www.instagram.com/reel/DS0C4UsE4BB/?igsh=c3Rwd3ltc3g2ZDJh

“Australian writer Inez Baranay explores Halide Edib’s India in new novel ‘Soul Climate’” Amit Sarwal https://www.theaustraliatoday.com.au/australian-writer-inez-baranay-explores-halide-edibs-india-in-new-novel-soul-climate/ 26 November 2025

Published

Published bySpeaking Tiger Books (Delhi) in November 2025.

TO BUY https://speakingtigerbooks.stck.me/book/1474806/Soul-Climate

ISBN

ISBN 978-93-6336-992-4