A “vivid and entertaining” (Chicago Tribune) tale about the tangled history of two families, from the author of The Island of Missing Trees (a Reese's Book Club Pick)
"Zesty, imaginative . . . a Turkish version of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." —USA Today
As an Armenian American living in San Francisco, Armanoush feels like part of her identity is missing and that she must make a journey back to the past, to Turkey, in order to start living her life. Asya is a nineteen-year-old woman living in an extended all-female household in Istanbul who loves Jonny Cash and the French existentialists. The Bastard of Istanbul tells the story of their two families--and a secret connection linking them to a violent event in the history of their homeland. Filed with humor and understanding, this exuberant, dramatic novel is about memory and forgetting, about the need to examine the past and the desire to erase it, and about Turkey itself.
WINNER Orange Prize for Fiction
Praise for The Bastard of Istanbul:
"Zesty, imaginative . . . A Turkish version of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." —USA Today
"Shafak's writing is seductive. . . . The Bastard of Istanbul portrays family as more than merely a function of genetics and fate, folding together history and fiction, the personal and the political into a thing of beauty." —Elle
"[This] saucy, witty, dramatic, and affecting tale in the spirit of novels by Amy Tan, Julia Alvarez, and Bharati Mukherjee should prove irresistible to readers. . . . A grandly emphatic and spellbinding story." —New York Newsday
"Beautifully imagined . . . this wonderful new novel carried me away. And reality was different when I returned." —Chicago Tribune
A “vivid and entertaining” (Chicago Tribune) tale about the tangled history of two families, from the author of The Island of Missing Trees (a Reese's Book Club Pick)
"Zesty, imaginative . . . a Turkish version of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." —USA Today
As an Armenian American living in San Francisco, Armanoush feels like part of her identity is missing and that she must make a journey back to the past, to Turkey, in order to start living her life. Asya is a nineteen-year-old woman living in an extended all-female household in Istanbul who loves Jonny Cash and the French existentialists. The Bastard of Istanbul tells the story of their two families--and a secret connection linking them to a violent event in the history of their homeland. Filed with humor and understanding, this exuberant, dramatic novel is about memory and forgetting, about the need to examine the past and the desire to erase it, and about Turkey itself.
Awards
WINNER Orange Prize for Fiction
Praise
Praise for The Bastard of Istanbul:
"Zesty, imaginative . . . A Turkish version of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." —USA Today
"Shafak's writing is seductive. . . . The Bastard of Istanbul portrays family as more than merely a function of genetics and fate, folding together history and fiction, the personal and the political into a thing of beauty." —Elle
"[This] saucy, witty, dramatic, and affecting tale in the spirit of novels by Amy Tan, Julia Alvarez, and Bharati Mukherjee should prove irresistible to readers. . . . A grandly emphatic and spellbinding story." —New York Newsday
"Beautifully imagined . . . this wonderful new novel carried me away. And reality was different when I returned." —Chicago Tribune
