Read by Barnaby Edwards

"Christopher de Bellaigue has a magic talent for writing history. It is as if we are there as the era of Suleyman the Magnificent unfolds." -Orhan Pamuk, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife. Within a decade and a half, Suleyman held dominion over twenty-five million souls, from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna, and with the help of his brilliant pirate commander Barbarossa placed more Christians than ever before or since under Muslim rule. And yet the real drama takes place in close-up: in small rooms and whispered conversations, behind the curtain of power, where the sultan sleeps head to toe with his best friend and eats from wooden spoons with his baby boy. In The Lion House, Christopher de Bellaigue tells not just the story of rival superpowers in an existential duel, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Christopher de Bellaigue is the award-winning author of several books, including The Islamic Enlightenment, which was short-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in 2017 and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2018. As a reporter in the 1990s and 2000s, he covered politics and invasions in Turkey, the Middle East, and South Asia for The Economist, The Guardian, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He has also made television and radio programs and has lectured at universities and in boardrooms around the world. "Wolf Hall for the Ottoman Empire . . . History at its most gripping . . . A gripping story told with intelligence, knowledge and verve." -Daily Telegraph "Those lucky readers who come to Christopher de Bellaigue's book in proximity to reading Mantel can suddenly have a new panel thrown open to them like an unfolding altarpiece . . . all written in the present tense. This creates the obvious sense of liveliness and urgency . . . de Bellaigue sets about the task with such confidence and skill that it works . . . a dazzling and dark work. Witty and often wise, it speaks to the frailties and the precarity of power." -David Aaronovitch, The Times "Reads like the most gripping fiction . . . could very well be Netflix's next epic." -Radio Times "An urgent, immersive, present-tense gallop . . . the book reads as a non-fiction novel . . . cinematically vivid tableaux . . . Each spangled scene . . . rests on a solid foundation in the primary sources . . . de Bellaigue enriches his storytelling with the colourful, meticulous dispatches of its traders, envoys and spies . . . behind the bejewelled descriptive prose a thumping pulse of action tugs us through . . . de Bellaigue's glittering, deft and often witty prose adds pleasure to each page." -Financial Times "Luminous, erudite . . . a gripping account that evokes an epic poem, saga or 'book of kings' . . . It is as immersive as the blurb claims, conjuring the world of the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia and south-eastern Europe in the early 16th century with the limpid clarity of the many gems that stud its pages . . . Even more than the detail, it is the characters that intrigue and often inspire . . . The book leaves the reader with Suleiman truly magnificent." -Spectator "An exhilarating read" -Rose Shepherd, Saga Magazine "An intricate and evocative account of 16th-century Ottoman ruler Suleyman I's rise to power . . . [de Bellaigue] endows the complex power plays and diplomatic in

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