The Bastard of Istanbul

byElif Shafak

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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.

A brave and passionate novel

Paul Theroux

About Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-eight languages. The author of twenty books, thirteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak’s novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. The Island of Missing Trees was a Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. There are Rivers in the Sky, which won an Edward Stanford Award for Fiction, is her latest novel.

Shafak holds a PhD in political science, and is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature. She has been awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and, in 2024, was awarded the British Academy President's Medal for ‘her excellent body of work which demonstrates an incredible intercultural range’.
Details
  • Series: Penguin Essentials #107
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • ISBN: 9780241986448
  • Length: 368 pages
  • Dimensions: 180mm x 22mm x 111mm
  • Weight: 200g
  • Price: £8.99
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