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The Bastard of Istanbul
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  • Published: 24 June 2015
  • ISBN: 9780241972908
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $28.00

The Bastard of Istanbul

Formats & editions
Paperback
3 Sept 2019
Paperback
24 June 2015
EBook
7 Nov 2013
Audiobook
6 June 2019
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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 want an abortion,’ she announces. She is nineteen years old and unmarried. What happens that day will change her life, and the lives of everyone around her.

Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul. A mysterious curse causes all the men to die by the age of forty-one, 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 connected with Turkey’s turbulent past begin to emerge.
  • Published: 24 June 2015
  • ISBN: 9780241972908
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $28.00
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About the author

Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-seven languages. The author of twenty books, fourteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's previous novel, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, was the UK’s bestselling literary hardback novel of 2025, selling over 500,000 copies. Her work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, amongst others, and she is currently nominated for ‘Author of the Year’ at the British Book Awards. Elif Shafak was appointed President of the Royal Society of Literature in 2025. Her books have sold several million copies worldwide.
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Also by Elif Shafak

There are Rivers in the Sky
The Island of Missing Trees
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World
In One Brief Moment All Eternity
A Ghostly Little Book
Three Daughters of Eve
The Architect's Apprentice
See all

Praise for The Bastard of Istanbul

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

(starred review), 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

(starred review), Publishers Weekly

A writer whose artistry matches her ambition . . . she has taken on a subject of deep moral consequence

New York Times

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 tender and spirited novel... Steeped in the sights, colours and smells of Turkey's capital, it grapples with the country's dark legacies

NPR Books

A beautiful book, the finest I have read

Irish Times

With compassion and a deftly humorous touch, Shafak fashions a woman's world that is at once micro and macro, using everyday material - recipes, lullabies, superstitions - to illuminate a broader reality

Metro