A violent secret that hides beneath the streets of Istanbul threatens the peace of two interwoven families
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.
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Summary
A violent secret that hides beneath the streets of Istanbul threatens the peace of two interwoven families
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.
Description
A violent secret that hides beneath the streets of Istanbul threatens the peace of two interwoven familiesOne 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.
Awards
Long-listed for Orange Prize for Fiction 2008
Critic Reviews
“A brave and passionate novel”
Unquestionably an ambitious book, exuberant and teeming . . . a novel crammed with characters and themes, not unlike Istanbul itself Guardian
Wonderfully magical, incredible, breathtaking . . . will have you gasping with disbelief in the last few pages Sunday Express
Heartbreaking . . . the beauty of Islam pervades Shafak's book Vogue
A writer whose artistry matches her ambition . . . she has taken on a subject of deep moral consequence New York Times
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 Reviews
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
About the Author
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into fifty-five languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize. Her previous novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize; longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as Blackwell's Book of the Year. She is a Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature. Shafak was awarded the Halld r Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to 'the renewal of the art of storytelling.'
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