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The Bastard of Istanbul
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  • Published: 3 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241986448
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $26.00

The Bastard of Istanbul

Formats & editions
Paperback
24 June 2015
EBook
7 Nov 2013
Audiobook
6 June 2019
Paperback
3 Sept 2019
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A breath-taking novel about a violent secret that threatens the peace of two interwoven families - now a Penguin Essential

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.
  • Published: 3 September 2019
  • ISBN: 9780241986448
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $26.00
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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-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’.
ES

Also by Elif Shafak

There are Rivers in the Sky
The Island of Missing Trees
A Ghostly Little Book
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World
Three Daughters of Eve
The Architect's Apprentice
Black Milk
See all

Praise for The Bastard of Istanbul

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

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

Unquestionably an ambitious book, exuberant and teeming

Guardian

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

Vogue