Turkey’s leading female writer, Elif Shafak has won international acclaim for her lyrical blend of Eastern and Western storytelling styles. In this heartbreaking tale of love and misunderstanding, Shafak draws upon the dazzling insight, emotion, and drama that infused The Bastard of Istanbul to explore the controversial issue of honor killings as it tragically plays out in one family’s life.
Twin sisters are born in the mid-1940s in a small Kurdish village on the border of Turkey and Syria. Jamila becomes a local midwife. Pembe marries Adem, and they immigrate to London in the 1970s. Bitter and frustrated with his new life, Adem moves out and Iskender, their eldest son, must step in as keeper of the family’s honor. But when Pembe begins to spend time with another man, Iskender will discover that you could love someone with all your heart and yet still hurt them.
Author
Elif Shafak
ELIF SHAFAK is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and storyteller who has published 21 books, including The Island of Missing Trees, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, The Forty Rules of Love, and There are Rivers in the Sky. Her work has been translated into 58 languages. She is the recipient of the British Academy President’s Medal and Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to “the renewal of the art of storytelling” and has been awarded Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
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