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The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak

$22.99

Paperback

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English
Viking
03 September 2019
A breath-taking novel about a violent secret that threatens the peace of two interwoven families - now a Penguin Essential

One rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery.

'I want an abortion', she announces.

She is nineteen years old, and unmarried.

What happens that afternoon is to change her life, and the lives of everyone around her.

Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul.

Due to a mysterious family curse all the men die by age 41, so it is a house of women, among them her beautiful, rebellious mother, Zeliha, clairvoyant Auntie Banu and bar-brawl widow, Auntie Cevriye.

But when Asya's Armenian-American cousin Armanoush comes to stay, long-hidden family secrets and Turkey's turbulent past begin to emerge.
By:  
Imprint:   Viking
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 180mm,  Width: 111mm,  Spine: 22mm
Weight:   200g
ISBN:   9780241986448
ISBN 10:   0241986443
Series:   Penguin Essentials
Pages:   368
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She is known as a women's rights, minority rights and LGBT rights advocate as well as an inspirational public intellectual and speaker. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 16 books, 10 of which are novels. Her books have been published in 48 languages. Shafak is a TED Global speaker, a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy in Davos and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). She has been awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2010 by the French government. She has been featured in and contributes to major newspapers and periodicals around the world, including the Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica. Shafak holds a degree in International Relations, a masters' degree in Gender and Women's Studies and a PhD in Political Science and Political Philosophy. She has taught at various universities in Turkey, the UK and the USA, and is the 2018 Weidenfeld Visiting Professor in Comparative European Literature at Oxford.

Reviews for The Bastard of Istanbul

Overflows with a kitchen sink's worth of zany characters ... an entertaining and insightful ensemble novel that posits the universality of family, culture and coincidence -- (starred review) * Publishers Weekly * An astonishingly rich and lively story ... handled with an enchantingly light touch' Kirkus Reviews Tremendous exuberance . . . I do like a writer with a purpose * Margaret Forster * A brave and passionate novel * Paul Theroux *


  • Long-listed for Orange Prize for Fiction.

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