10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World PDF
Preview 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World
An intensely beautiful and haunting novel from Elif Shafak about the wonder of life, the mystery of death and the strange space in between.
For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the bubbling vats of lemon and sugar women use to wax their legs while men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life – friends who are now desperately trying to find her.
"Never didactic, here is an object lesson in how fiction can at once entertain and enlighten. Faint traces of magic and superstition linger, and Leila’s heightened state is reflected in the prose, which is lush and rich and lucid. 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." - Francesca Segal, Financial Times (UK)
'Haunting, moving, beautifully written - and based by an extraordinary cast of characters who capture the diversity of modern Turkey. A masterpiece' - Peter Frankopan
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels. Her 2019 novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and chosen as Blackwell’s Book of the Year. Her previous novel, The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by BBC as one of the 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. Shafak has been conferred a Doctor of Humane Letters by Bard College in 2021. She is an honorary fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford University.
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