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The Renovation
  • Published: 26 March 2026
  • ISBN: 9781405989152
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $32.00

The Renovation

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
23 June 2026
Audiobook
26 Mar 2026
Hardback
26 Apr 2026
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A modern classic in the making - a heartbreaking portrait of one Turkish family caught in the tides of history, grappling with grief, exile, political oppression, and the painful absurdity of love

Dilara is having her bathroom renovated. Her father's memory is collapsing, dementia stealing a little more of him each day; her apartment must be adapted so he can move in with her. But when the builders finally unveil their handiwork, there is a problem: instead of a new bathroom, they have built a prison cell. Not just any cell - one that Dilara recognises. It is Silivri Prison in Istanbul.

At first she is outraged, exasperated, determined to reverse the bizarre mistake. Dilara's family are political exiles: they fled Turkey years ago and have never been back. The last thing she wants is a piece of her abandoned homeland appearing uninvited in her new home. But gradually her indignation gives way to curiosity. Even as she struggles to care for her father, keep the family finances afloat and stop the wheels coming off her marriage, she is drawn back again and again to the mysterious prison cell, and through it to a city that once belonged to her - to the salt wind off the Marmara, the sky full of gulls and domes and minarets - back to Istanbul.
  • Published: 26 March 2026
  • ISBN: 9781405989152
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $32.00
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Praise for The Renovation

The Renovation brilliantly describes what it’s like for "elsewhere" to be "here". An instant entry not just into the canon of migrant literature but into the literature of now

Isabel Waidner, author of 'Sterling Karat Gold'

Addictive and chilling, yet so sensitive, so beautifully told – like Kafka by way of Pedro Almodóvar – I couldn’t put it down and I didn’t want it to end. Kenan Orhan is a truly gifted writer, drawing us down into a tunnel of memory and madness

Avni Doshi, author of 'Burnt Sugar'

Elegant, propulsive and wholly original, The Renovation is a profound meditation on familial duties, memory, displacement and the devastating longing for a home that exists solely in the past. It will stay with me for a long time

Cecile Pin, author of 'Wandering Souls'

Written with a slyly comic touch, The Renovation has at its heart an unexpected and powerfully charged emotional space. There are encounters between Dilara and her ageing, exiled father that will stay with me for a long time to come

Chetna Maroo, author of 'Western Lane'

Truly original, this debut novel grips from start to finish

Elle

A surreal novel of migration and memory [which] follows Orhan’s celebrated 2023 story collection

Guardian

Elegant, disarming, evocative... [An] allegory about family, country, and the failure of memory

Kirkus

Tender [and] astonishing

Booklist

A haunting meditation on memory and displacement that reconsiders the meaning of liberation

New Yorker

Surreal, mysterious, engrossing... A domestic drama shaped by the political turbulence of the Erdogan era

Mail on Sunday