The Bastard of Istanbul
Author(s): Elif Shafak
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.
Product Information
Commended for Orange Prize for Fiction 2008.
An astonishingly rich and lively story ... handled with an enchantingly light touch' Kirkus Reviews A brave and passionate novel Paul Theroux Tremendous exuberance ... I do like a writer with a purpose Margaret Forster An astonishingly rich and lively story ... handled with an enchantingly light touch Kirkus 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 Publishers Weekly
Elif Shafak is one of Turkey's most acclaimed and outspoken novelists. She was born in 1972 and is the author of five previous novels, most recently The Saint of Incipient Insanities and The Flea Palace. She teaches at the University of Arizona and divides her time between the US and Istanbul.
General Fields
- :
- : Penguin Books, Limited
- : 0.245
- : 01 March 2008
- : 198mm X 129mm X 22mm
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 October 2020
- : books
Special Fields
- : Elif Shafak
- : Paperback
- : 1
- : English
- : 894.3533
- : very good
- : 368