The Bastard of Istanbul Audiobook By Elif Shafak cover art

The Bastard of Istanbul

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The Bastard of Istanbul

By: Elif Shafak
Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Bastard of Istanbul by Edif Shafak.

One rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I need to have an abortion', she announces. She is 19 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 40s, 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.

Orange Prize for Fiction, Long-listed

©2019 Elif Shafak (P)2019 Penguin Audio City Life Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Urban World Literature
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Critic reviews

"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)
All stars
Most relevant
I really enjoyed listening to this book. Good story, flows well with beautifully written descriptions. I am definitely a fan of Elif Shafak, and perhaps her translator too. Alix Dunmore did a really good job differentiating each character in the book.

Really lovely!

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Too many distracting details in an other wise intriguing story. Taught me so much about Armenians and the Ottoman Empire.

Distracting details

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Such a well written and interesting book, a must read! You won’t be able to put it down!

Amazing

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With the touch of a lyrical fairy tale but modern and historical, sited in Istanbul and the Armenian community in the US. A warm voice of a nuanced outsuder.

Lyrical, feminine, oriental

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It is a paradox to me why I couldn't finish this book. I found the writing too stylised, and the narrating too blurred in the variety of accents. I became irritated with the repeated and high-lighted contradictions in all their forms, in the writing. Great author, good narrator, but not in this book, for me.

Paradoxical

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