Search results for ""Author Elif Shafak""

From Booker-shortlisted author Elif Shafak, Honour is a gripping tale of love, betrayal and clashing cultures. 'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten'Pembe and Adem Toprak leave Turkey for London. There they make new lives for their family. Yet the traditions and beliefs of their home come with them - carried in the blood of their children, Iskender and Esma. Trapped by past mistakes, the Toprak children find their lives torn apart and transformed by a brutal and chilling crime.Set in Turkey and London in the 1970s, Honour explores pain and loss, loyalty and betrayal, the clash of tradition and modernity, as well as the love and heartbreak that can tear any family apart.'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi 'Vivid storytelling... that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love' Sunday Telegraph

Read more less

From Booker-shortlisted author Elif Shafak, comes a powerful tale of faith, love and friendship set across Istanbul and OxfordOn a spring evening in Istanbul, Peri is on her way to a dinner party - a night of luxury a far cry from her upbringing. But when her handbag is stolen her world shifts violently. She starts to doubt how she got here: a traumatic Istanbul childhood, student years in Oxford, the rebellious professor who led her and best friends Shirin and Mona to question everything - Islam, love, life, even God - and the scandal that tore them all apart. Over one desperate night she tries to make sense of a past she has tried to forget - but can we ever escape who we once were?Shirin, Peri and Mona, they were the most unlikely of friends. They were the Sinner, the Believer and the Confused.*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

From Booker-shortlisted author Elif Shafak, Honour is a gripping tale of love, betrayal and clashing cultures.'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten'Pembe and Adem Toprak leave Turkey for London. There they make new lives for their family. Yet the traditions and beliefs of their home come with them - carried in the blood of their children, Iskender and Esma. Trapped by past mistakes, the Toprak children find their lives torn apart and transformed by a brutal and chilling crime.Set in Turkey and London in the 1970s, Honour explores pain and loss, loyalty and betrayal, the clash of tradition and modernity, as well as the love and heartbreak that can tear any family apart.'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi'Vivid storytelling... that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love' Sunday Telegraph *** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

Lose yourself in the thrilling political intrigue and tangled love affairs of wartime Egypt in Durrell's epic modern classic, introduced by bestselling author Elif Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love).An expat schoolteacher has spent years in exile reflecting on his turmoiled love affair with Justine, a glamorous Egyptian wife. Returning to wartime Alexandria, he finds that his old friends have suffered dramatic changes of body, mind, and fortune - and someone whom he has never really known wishes to see him. His affair with Clea, a bisexual artist, not only changes the lovers, but transforms the dead, forever - and heralds a new beginning, just as Lawrence Durrell's intoxicating masterpiece ends. 'Durrell has written about a dozen real love stories, entwined them, and explored them with a truly Proustian ferocity ... Superb.' Observer 'Lushly beautiful ... His style glows ... One of the most important works of our time.' New York Times Book Review'It is hard now to recapture the impact half a century ago of these novels' heat, luxuriance and profanity [or] his descriptions of Alexandria - its beauty, cruelty, menace, mystery, decadence ....' Spectator

Read more less

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. The taverna It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows.In the centre of the tavern, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. This tree will witness their hushed, happy meetings, their silent, surreptitious departures; and the tree will be there when the war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish and break apart.Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born. Desperate for answers, she seeks to untangle years of secrets, separation and silence. The only connection she has to the land of her ancestors is a Ficus Carica growing in the back garden of their home.In The Island of Missing Trees, prizewinning author Elif Shafak brings us a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, memory and amnesia, human-induced destruction of nature, and, finally, renewal.

Read more less

THE TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe breathtaking new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. *****This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives all connected by a single drop of water.In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur's only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur's world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: Nineveh and Its Remains.In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought f

Read more less

*The international bestseller from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World** One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'* "Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..." Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work.It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . .'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

Black Milk is the affecting and beautifully written memoir on motherhood and writing by Turkey's bestselling female writer Elif Shafak, author of Honour, The Gaze and The Bastard of Istanbul which was long-listed for the Orange prize.Postpartum depression affects millions of new mothers every year, and- like most of its victims- Elif Shafak never expected to be one of them. But after the birth of her first child in 2006, the internationally bestselling Turkish author remembers how "for the first time my adult life . . . words wouldn't speak to me". As her despair finally eased, Shafak sought to resuscitate her writing life by chronicling her own experiences.In her intimate memoir, she reveals how she struggled to overcome her depression and how literature provided the salvation she so desperately needed.'An intimate, affecting memoir . . . Her passion for literature is contagious, and her struggle with postpartum depression and writer's block reinforces how carefully all of us must tread. Beautifully rendered, Shafak's Black Milk is an epic poem to women everywhere' Colleen Mondor

Read more less

A gripping and beautiful novel from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange WorldOne 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. Due to a mysterious family curse, all the Kaznci men die in their early forties, so it is a house of women, among them Asya's beautiful, rebellious mother Zeliha, who runs a tattoo parlour; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as clairvoyant; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. And when Asya's Armenian-American cousin Armanoush comes to stay, long hidden family secrets connected with Turkey's turbulent past begin to emerge.'Wonderfully magical, incredible, breathtaking...will have you gasping with disbelief in the last few pages' Sunday Express'A beautiful book, the finest I have read about Turkey' Irish Times'Heartbreaking...the beauty of Islam pervades Shafak's book' VogueElif Shafak's latest novel The Island of Missing Trees is available for pre-order now

Read more less

Shortlisted for the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Elif Shafak's The Flea Palace is a moving and highly original novel about a group of individuals who live in the same building and who together become embroiled in a mystery.By turns comic and tragic, The Flea Palace is an outstandingly original novel driven by an overriding sense of social justice.Bonbon Palace was once a stately apartment block in Istanbul. Now it is a sadly dilapidated home to ten wildly different individuals and their families.There's a womanizing, hard-drinking academic with a penchant for philosophy; a 'clean freak' and her lice-ridden daughter; a lapsed Jew in search of true love; and a charmingly naïve mistress whose shadowy past lurks in the building. When the rubbish at Bonbon Palace is stolen, a mysterious sequence of events unfolds that result in a soul-searching quest for truth.'Picaresque' Guardian'Hyperactive and hilarious' Independent*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

THE TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe breathtaking new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. *****This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives all connected by a single drop of water.In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur's only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur's world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: Nineveh and Its Remains.In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought f

Read more less

The international bestseller from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, The Forty Rules of Love is part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics*One of the BBC's '100 Novels That Shaped the World'*"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..."Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work.It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . .'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019'Expect vibrant, vivid and eye-opening descriptions of Middle Eastern life propelled by a tender storyline, all in Shafak's haunting, beautiful and considered prose' Vanity Fair'Incredibly sensuous and poetic and evocative' Pandora Sykes'Richly uplifting... truly beautiful writing' Nicola Sturgeon'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore...'For Leila, each minute after her death recalls a sensuous memory: spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the birth of a yearned-for son; bubbling vats of lemon and sugar to wax women's legs while men are at prayer; the cardamom coffee she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each fading memory brings back the friends she made in her bittersweet life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her . . .'Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end' Philippe Sands'Elif Shafak brings into the written realm what so many others want to leave outside. Spend more than ten minutes and 38 seconds in this world of the estranged. Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann 'Elif Shafak's extraordinary 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World is a work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness' Simon Schama'A rich, sensual novel... This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty.' Financial Times'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi 'Haunting, moving, beautifully written. A masterpiece' Peter Frankopan 'Extraordinary' Guardian'Life-affirming' Stylist*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

From award-winning writer Elif Shafak, the Orange Prize long-listed author of The Forty Rules of Love and The Architect's Apprentice, The Gaze is a humorous and carnivalesque exploration of what it means to look and be looked at...An obese woman and her lover, a dwarf, are sick of being stared at wherever they go and so decide to reverse roles. The man goes out wearing make-up and the woman draws a moustache on her face.This elegant, unforgettable novel explores our desire to look at others.'Beautifully evoked' The Times'Original and compelling' TLS*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

'Elegant ... calm and generous' Mary Beard, Guardian The must-read, pocket-sized Big Think book of 2020 One of the Guardian's 'Best Books to Inspire Compassion' One of Independent's Books of the Month A Cosmopolitan 'Revolutionary Read' Ours is the age of contagious anxiety. We feel overwhelmed by the events around us, by injustice, by suffering, by an endless feeling of crisis. So, how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division? In this powerful, uplifting plea for conscious optimism, Booker Prize-nominated novelist and activist Elif Shafak draws on her own memories and delves into the power of stories to bring us together. In the process, she reveals how listening to each other can nurture democracy, empathy and our faith in a kinder and wiser future.

Read more less

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. Due to a mysterious family curse, all the Kaznci men die in their early forties, so it is a house of women, among them Asya's beautiful, rebellious mother Zeliha, who runs a tattoo parlour; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as clairvoyant; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. And when Asya's Armenian-American cousin Armanoush comes to stay, long hidden family secrets connected with Turkey's turbulent past begin to emerge.'Wonderfully magical, incredible, breathtaking...will have you gasping with disbelief in the last few pages' Sunday Express'A beautiful book, the finest I have read about Turkey' Irish Times'Heartbreaking...the beauty of Islam pervades Shafak's book' Vogue

Read more less

A dazzling and intricate tale from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World - chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall's online book club The Reading Room'There were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant. We built everything together...'Sixteenth century Istanbul: a stowaway arrives in the city bearing an extraordinary gift for the Sultan. The boy is utterly alone in a foreign land, with no worldly possessions to his name except Chota, a rare white elephant destined for the palace menagerie.So begins an epic adventure that will see young Jahan rise from lowly origins to the highest ranks of the Sultan's court. Along the way he will meet deceitful courtiers and false friends, gypsies, animal tamers, and the beautiful, mischievous Princess Mihrimah. He will journey on Chota's back to the furthest corners of the Sultan's kingdom and back again. And one day he will catch the eye of the royal architect, Sinan, a chance encounter destined to change Jahan's fortunes forever.Filled with all the colour of the Ottoman Empire, when Istanbul was the teeming centre of civilisation, The Architect's Apprentice is a magical, sweeping tale of one boy and his elephant caught up in a world of wonder and danger.'A gorgeous picture of a city teeming with secrets, intrigue and romance' The Times'Exuberant, epic and comic, fantastical and realistic . . . like all good stories it conveys deeper meanings about human experience' Financial Times'Fascinating. A vigorous evocation of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power' Sunday Times'Intricate, multi-layered, resplendent, vividly evoked, beautifully written' Observer*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Read more less

Meet the people of Cairo's Gamaliya quarter. There is Nabqa, son of Adam the waterseller who can only speak truths; the beautiful and talented Tawhida who does not age with time; Ali Zaidan, the gambler, late to love; and Boss Saqr who stashes his money above the bath. A neighbourhood of demons, dancing and sweet halva, the quarter keeps quiet vigil over the secrets of all who live there. This collection by pre-eminent Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz was recently discovered among his old papers. Found with a slip of paper titled `for publishing 1994', they are published here for the first time. Resplendent with Mahfouz's delicate and poignant observations of everyday happenings, these lively stories take the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo.

Read more less