The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak

kol 2012. · Penguin UK

O ovoj e-knjizi

One rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I need to have an abortion', she announces. She is nineteen years old and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life.

Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul. Due to a mysterious family curse, all the Kaznci men die in their early forties, so it is a house of women, among them Asya's beautiful, rebellious mother Zeliha, who runs a tattoo parlour; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as clairvoyant; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. And when Asya's Armenian-American cousin Armanoush comes to stay, long hidden family secrets connected with Turkey's turbulent past begin to emerge.

'Wonderfully magical, incredible, breathtaking...will have you gasping with disbelief in the last few pages' Sunday Express

'A beautiful book, the finest I have read about Turkey' Irish Times

'Heartbreaking...the beauty of Islam pervades Shafak's book' Vogue

O autoru

Elif Shafak is one of today's most influential international writers and intellectuals who straddle East and West. She is the acclaimed author of ten novels including The Architect's Apprentice and The Bastard of Istanbul, and is the most widely read female writer in Turkey. Her work has been translated into over forty languages and she has been awarded the prestigious Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. She is also a public speaker, a women's and LGBT rights activist and a commentator who regularly contributes to world publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica. Elif has been longlisted for the Orange Prize, the Baileys Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award, and shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Ondaatje Prize. She lives in London and can be found at www.elifshafak.com.