Elif Shafak

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love.Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak's best work yet.

Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams's search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mir­rors her own and that Zahara—like Shams—has come to set her free.In this lyrical, exuberant follow-up to her 2007 novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, acclaimed Turkish author Elif Shafak unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz—that together incarnate the poet's timeless message of love.

An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'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 sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the 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. . .

From the Booker Prize finalist author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two rivers, all under the shadow of one of the greatest epic poems of all time.In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives. In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time. In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything. A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

From one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken writers, a novel about the tangled histories of two families.In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the “bastard” of the title, Asya, a nineteen-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul: Zehila, the zestful, headstrong youngest sister who runs a tattoo parlor and is Asya’s mother; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as a clairvoyant; Cevriye, a widowed high school teacher; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster. Their one estranged brother lives in Arizona with his wife and her Armenian daughter, Armanoush. When Armanoush secretly flies to Istanbul in search of her identity, she finds the Kazanci sisters and becomes fast friends with Asya. A secret is uncovered that links the two families and ties them to the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres. Full of vigorous, unforgettable female characters, The Bastard of Istanbul is a bold, powerful tale that will confirm Shafak as a rising star of international fiction.

Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground—an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past—and a love—Peri had tried desperately to forget.The photograph takes Peri back to Oxford University, as an eighteen year old sent abroad for the first time. To her dazzling, rebellious Professor and his life-changing course on God. To her home with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about Islam and femininity. And finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart.

From the acclaimed author of The Bastard of Istanbul, a colorful, magical tale set during the height of the Ottoman Empire In her latest novel, Elif Shafak spins an epic tale spanning nearly a century in the life of the Ottoman Empire. In 1540, twelve-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan’s menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan’s beautiful daughter, Princess Mihrimah. A palace education leads Jahan to Mimar Sinan, the empire’s chief architect, who takes Jahan under his wing as they construct (with Chota’s help) some of the most magnificent buildings in history. Yet even as they build Sinan’s triumphant masterpieces—the incredible Suleymaniye and Selimiye mosques—dangerous undercurrents begin to emerge, with jealousy erupting among Sinan’s four apprentices. A memorable story of artistic freedom, creativity, and the clash between science and fundamentalism, Shafak’s intricate novel brims with vibrant characters, intriguing adventure, and the lavish backdrop of the Ottoman court, where love and loyalty are no match for raw power.

An honor killing shatters and transforms the lives of Turkish immigrants in 1970s LondonInternationally bestselling Turkish author Elif Shafak’s new novel is a dramatic tale of families, love, and misunderstandings that follows the destinies of twin sisters born in a Kurdish village. While Jamila stays to become a midwife, Pembe follows her Turkish husband, Adem, to London, where they hope to make new lives for themselves and their children.In London, they face a choice: stay loyal to the old traditions or try their best to fit in. After Adem abandons his family, Iskender, the eldest son, must step in and become the one who will not let any shame come to the family name. And when Pembe begins a chaste affair with a man named Elias, Iskender will discover that you could love someone with all your heart and yet be ready to hurt them.Just published to great acclaim in England, Honor is a powerful, gripping exploration of guilt and innocence, loyalty and betrayal, and the trials of the immigrant, as well as the love and heartbreak that too often tear families apart.

An acclaimed Turkish novelist's personal account of balancing a writer's life with a mother's life. After the birth of her first child in 2006, Turkish writer Elif Shafek suffered from postpartum depression that triggered a profound personal crisis. Infused with guilt, anxiety, and bewilderment about whether she could ever be a good mother, Shafak stopped writing and lost her faith in words altogether. In this elegantly written memoir, she retraces her journey from free-spirited, nomadic artist to dedicated but emotionally wrought mother. Identifying a constantly bickering harem of women who live inside of her, each with her own characteristics--the cynical intellectual, the goal-oriented go-getter, the practical-rational, the spiritual, the maternal, and the lustful--she craves harmony, or at least a unifying identity. As she intersperses her own experience with the lives of prominent authors such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Ayn Rand, and Zelda Fitzgerald, Shafak looks for a solution to the inherent conflict between artistic creation and responsible parenting. With searing emotional honesty and an incisive examination of cultural mores within patriarchal societies, Shafak has rendered an important work about literature, motherhood, and spiritual well-being.

The must-read, pocket-sized Big Think book of 2020Ours 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.

Set within a once-stately apartment block in Istanbul, The Flea Palace tells the story of Bonbon Palace, built by Russian noble émigré Pavel Antipov for his wife Agripina at the end of the Tsarist reign. It is now sadly dilapidated, flea-infested, and home to ten very different individuals and their families. Elif Shafak gives us a bird’s-eye insight into each apartment, and we see their comic and tragic lives unfold.

ساردونيا صبية ذكية وخلاقة، لكنها تُعاني مشكلة واحدة، أنها تكره اسمها، الذي بسببه يسخر منها تلاميذ صفها، فتصبح الكتب والحكايات أصدقائها الأوفياء. ذات يوم، تعثر الفتاة فى المكتبة على مجسم للكرة الأرضية، فتتعرف من خلاله على صديقين غريبى الأطوار، من القارة الثامنة، والقارة الثامنة هذه تستورد الخيال، وتصدر الحكايات، لكنها تصاب بالجفاف بسبب تراجع القراءة، وقلة الخيال، فتتبنى ساردونيا وصديقاتها إنقاذ الخيال والقارة الثامنة. أليف شافاك: روائية وناشطة تركية صدر لها عن دار الآداب: قواعد العشق الأربعون، لقيطة إسطنبول، شرف، قصر الحلوى، الفتى المتيم والمعلم، حليب أسود، بنات حواء الثلاث.

A new title from the author of The Flea Palace, shortlisted for the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction and chosen for Waterstone’s 2005 Summer Reading promotion.In her prize-wining novel, The Gaze, Shafak explores the subject of body image and desirability. An overweight woman and her lover, a dwarf, are sick of being stared at wherever they go, and decide to reverse roles. The man goes out wearing make up, and the woman draws a moustache on her face.The couple deal with the gaze of passers by in different ways. The woman wants to hide away from the world, while the man meets them head on, even compiling his own ‘Dictionary of the Gaze’ to show the powerful effects a simple look can have.The narrative of The Gaze is intertwined with the dwarf’s dictionary entries and the story of a bizarre freak-show organized in Istanbul in the 1880s as Shafak explores the damage which can be done by our simple desire to look at other people.

The Saint of Incipient Insanities is the comic and heartbreaking story of a group of twenty-something friends, and their never-ending quest for fulfillment. Omer, Abed and Piyu are roommates, foreigners all recently arrived in the United States. Omer, from Istanbul, is a Ph.D. student in political science who adapts quickly to his new home, and falls in love with the bisexual, suicidal, intellectual chocolate maker Gail. Gail is American yet feels utterly displaced in her homeland and moves from one obsession to another in an effort to find solid ground. Abed pursues a degree in biotechnology, worries about Omer's unruly ways, his mother's unexpected visit, and stereotypes of Arabs in America; he struggles to maintain a connection with his girlfriend back home in Morocco. Piyu is a Spaniard, who is studying to be a dentist in spite of his fear of sharp objects, and is baffled by the many relatives of his Mexican-American girlfriend, Algre, and in many ways by Algre herself. Keenly insightful and sharply humorous, The Saint of Incipient Insanities is a vibrant exploration of love, friendship, culture, nationality, exile and belonging.Translated into Turkish: Araf

Döndü halka/ döndü olanca hızıyla/ toprak ki siyah bir halka idi/ ve geceye saklanırdı bazen/ tuttu su ile karıştı/ su ki sarı bir halka idi/ rengiyle dalaşırdı bazen/ tuttu toprağı kucakladı/ eğildim suya baktım/ suda kendimi gördüm/ kendimi sen sandım/ sarılmak için atıldım/ köprüye hıncım yalan imiş/ onu yıkarken suya karışan/ ben oldumBir de baktım ki/ ben ben değilim artık/ sûretim başka bir sûret/ ismim bir başkasının ismi/ gönlüm ne yöne akar/ ben ne yöne/ verdiğin emaneti yitirdim yollarda/ hata ettim/ kusur ettim/ affola...

Tadına doyulmaz, kimi zaman kışkırtıcı, kimi zaman sakinleştirici ama ruhu hep özgür kalan yazılar....İnsan ki eşrefi mahlukattır, içindeki semavi özü keşfetmekle yükümlüdür. Çıkacaksın yollara, kendine doğru git gidebildiğin kadar. Keşif boynumuzun borcudur. Kendimizi keşfetmek, aşkı keşfetmek, dünyayı keşfetmek, Ötekini keşfetmek... (…)Çakılı kalmamak sırf alışkanlıklardan ötürü demir attığın koylara. Çıkmak oralardan, geçmek dalgakıranların beri tarafına, bilmediğin memleketlere varmak, tatmadığın yemekler yemek, sözlerini anlamadığın şarkılarla içlenmek, risk almak, dağılmak ve parçalanmak ve hasret çekmek buram buram, gurbetin tadına bakmak ve kendini yabancının gözünden görmek, şaşırmak yeniden, şaşırmak bir çocuk gibi dünyanın hallerine, çeşitliliğine, güzelliğine, acımasızlıklarına... şaşırmak ölene kadar... şaşırma kabiliyetini hiç yitirmemek... budur son tahlilde Âdemoğullarına, Havvakızlarına kendilerini keşfettirten serüven.

الجزء الثاني لرواية شرف للكاتبة التركية إليف شافاق

Gönülden yazılmış her roman, her hikaye, her kelime bir şemsparedir...Güneş parçası... Kararır gökyüzü bazen;kasvetli bulutlar kaplar semayı.Hayatın ritmi durağanlaşır, sohbetler bildikleşir,içimizde birikir yalnızlık hissi.Nasıl özleriz güneşi o zaman,griler içinde aradığımızbir tutam renk demeti.Peri tozu gibi, inceden. Gönülden yazılmış her roman,her hikaye, her kelimebir şemsparedir...Güneş parçası... Düşer omuzlarımıza,kar tanesi gibi usulca,yağmur gibi yıkar ruhumuzu, arındırır tozdan kirden tekdüzeliklerden...

Penguin Specials are designed to fill a gap. Written to be read over a long commute or a short journey, they are original and exclusively in digital form. This is Elif Shafak's examination of national identity."You know, I never understand. How come their children are so quiet and well disciplined?""Yeah," said the distressed father, his voice suddenly softer. "Blond children never cry, do they?"As Elif Shafak stands in line at the airport, she overhears a Turkish father expressing to a friend his bewilderment at the cultural differences he's experienced since immigrating to northern Europe. Is it true, she wonders, that the citizens of these countries are genuinely happier? Why do people leave their homes for other countries? And what lessons can we all learn, for the creation of truly harmonious societies, from the experiences of immigrants?In the light of the recent backlash against multiculturalism and the influx of millions of Muslims into Europe from the east, this powerful and personal essay uses the lived experience of immigrants to examine this most hotly debated subject.

"Aynalar şehrine geldim çünkü benim hikâyemin önünü, benden evvel kaleme alınmış bir başka hikâye tıkıyor. Aynalar şehrindeyim çünkü bir kez şu bendi yıkabilsem sular çağlayacak, deli deli akacak; hissediyorum."...Bazen, hakikat bütün çirkinliği ve çirkefiyle karşıma dikildiğinde, akıbetimi allayıp pullamak, süsleyip püslemek gelmiyor içimden. Böyle zamanlarda gözlerimi kapatıp, usulca arkama yaslanıyorum ve küfre özenen kelimelerin dişlerimin arasında bıraktığı o kekremsi tatla oyalanıyorum."Aynalar şehrindeyim çünkü ben bir korkağım; ve ne olduğunu bilen her korkak gibi, bu sırrı kendime saklıyorum."Elif Şafak, Türkiye'nin önde gelen çağdaş yazarlarından biri olarak Orhan Pamuk'un yanında yerini alıyor.-Economist-

تغادر بمبي تركيا ، تاركة ورائها أختها التؤام ، وتابعة زوجها الحبيب آدم إلى لندن ، وتحاول عائلة طبرق الكردية ، عبثاً ، في المنفى الإبتعاد عن التقاليد والمعتقدات ، التي تبقى تلاحقهم حتى أخر نقطة دم يجد أولاد عائلة طبرق أنفسهم عالقين في فخ الماضيومصدومين بجريمة مروعة تقلب حياتهم رأساً على عقبرواية قوية تجري أحداثها بين تركيا ولندن ، تحكي الفقدان والعذاب ، الوفاء والخيانة ، وصراع الحداثة والتقاليد ، فتمزق العائلات إرباً إرباً

Sana kelimelerden kaleler yaptım. Hendekli, balkonlu, eflatun bayraklı, girişi saklı kocaman kaleler. Bir odasında bıraktım yüreğimi. Merasimsiz, habersiz, tantanasız ve beklentisiz usulca düşürüverdim elimden, olur da bulursan belki sevinirsin diye, öylesine.Sana harflerden sarmaşıklar ördüm; geceleri gözlerini kapadığında, uyku ile uyanıklık arası o tekinsiz aralıkta durduğunda, cinlerin meşveret alanında yapayalnız kaldığında koklarsın belki, hatırlarsın diye.Sana alfabeden kaftan diktim; azametle giyesin ve hiç üşümeyesin diye, kalın kadifeden, sırma ipliklerle. İşledim üzerine isminin baş harflerini, sessiz ve derinden, kimse bilmeden, sadece Yaradan'ın duyduğu bir yemin gibi.Sana noktalardan güller, virgüllerden bülbüller, ünlemlerden yaylalar, noktalı virgüllerden dağlar ve ovalar yaptım. Her bir imla işaretini özenle ekledim isminin büyüsüne. Çünkü sevmek, yeni bir dil inşa etmek demek. İki kişilik bir dil. Çünkü aşkın olduğu yerde muhakkak kelam vardır, sessizlik değil.

“… bir gün bir bilge, kendi türleriyle uçmayı reddeden iki ayrı cins kuşa rastlar yol kenarında. Hayli merak eder bu iki farklı yaratığın nasıl olup da kendi aileleriyle, ait oldukları yerlerde yaşamak istemediklerini, nasıl olup da bir ‘yabancı’yı kendi kardeşlerine yeğlediklerini. Biri karga, biri leylek… O kadar farklıdır ki kuşlar, ihtimal veremez birbirlerini sevdiklerine, türdeşleriyle değil de birbirleriyle uçmayı yeğlediklerine. Öyle ya, karga dediğin kargalarla uçmalıdır, leylek dediğinse leyleklerle. Yaklaşır ve merakla inceler kuşları. Ta ki her ikisinin de topal olduğunu keşfedinceye kadar. O zaman anlar ki, birlikte kaçar, birlikte uçar, beraber yaşamaları beklenenlerin yanında tutunamayanlar.”

(...) Derken o yolculukta bir an geliyor, durup geriye bakma gereği duyuyorum. Geçtiğim yolları, uğradığım durakları, güzergah boyu karşılaştıklarımı anımsıyorum.Bu kitap dünden bugüne yazdıklarımdan ufacık bir seçkidir. Bir alıntılar kitabı. Karın doyursun diye değil, tadımlık niyetine.Kağıdın üzerine konmuş birkaç tatlı kelam.Kağıt Helva...

A short story by Elif Shafak from the collection Reader, I Married Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.In ‘A Migrating Bird’, a young Turkish woman is drawn to a Dutch student on foreign exchange at her university.Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader, I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original ISBN and Cover Image In this Listing shall be Dispatched Shafak Elif 3 Books Collection The Architect's In this novel, Turkey’s preeminent female writer spins an epic tale spanning nearly a century in the life of the Ottoman Empire. In 1540, twelve-year-old Jahan arrives in Istanbul. As an animal tamer in the sultan’s menagerie, he looks after the exceptionally smart elephant Chota and befriends (and falls for) the sultan’s beautiful daughter.The Island of Missing 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.10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange In the pulsating moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active-for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life-and the lives of others, outcasts like her.

An essay meditating on friendship and belonging, written exclusively for Books That Matter

Elif Şafak'ın öyküleri, mitolojinin, masalın ve tarihin içeriğinin, halkın günlük yaşamı içindeki özdeşliği üzerine kurulmuştur. Bu büyülü bileşim, daha ilk adımda, öykülerin adında kendini duyurur: Mezopotamya Sarısı, Yedi Damla Diyar-ı Bikr, Topal Kartallara Tarihsiz Avcılar...Denilebilir ki bu öyküler, olup bitenin henüz bu anlama ve anlatma biçimlerinden birine girmeden önceki hallerini, hareketin bütün canlılığını ve karmaşasını henüz üzerlerinde taşıdıkları o ilk anı yakalama heyecanıdır. Nesnenin henüz imgesini salıvermediği, her birinin diğeri yerine, aynı gerçekliği aynı etkiyle kalabalığın içinde dolaştırdığı o ilk an…Elif Şafak, yaşanmış olan her şeyi, yalnızca şiir aracılığıyla paylaşılabilir bir değer düzeyine yükseltmekle kalmaz, aynı zamanda bütün bunlara, özellikle vurgulanmış bir kadın kimliğiyle katılır, orada, dün, bugün ve yarın arasında "şimdi" için kurtulmuş bir bağıntı arar, bulur ve değiştirmek için herkesi çağırır. -Aydın Çubukçu

Usta yazar Elif Şafak'ın sıradışı karakteri Sakız Sardunya, binlerce okurun kalbini kazandı! Yoksa sen hala tanışmadın mı?Sakız Sardunya bir gün okulun kütüphanesinde bulduğu sihirli küre sayesinde asla unutamayacağı bir yolculuğa çıktı. Yanında götürdüğü günlüğüne de her ayrıntıyı yazmayı ihmal etmedi. Serüven boyunca resimler çizdi, bulmacalar çözdü, bilmeceler yanıtlandı Kalemini elinden hiç düşürmedi.Şimdi sıra sende! Sakız Sardunya ile eğlence dolu bir serüvene atılmaya hazır ol. Birbirinden farklı oyunlar, bulmacalar, bilmeceler, hayal gücünü ve yaratıcılığını artıracak yazı çalışmaları, yeteneklerini sergileyeceğin çizim alanları ve çok daha fazlası seni bekliyor!