The Bastard of Istanbul

"Vivid and entertaining... This wonderful new nowe carried me away. And reality was diffecrent when I returned."

-Chicago Tribune

As an Armenian american living in San Francisko, 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 Johnny Cash and the French existentialist. 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. Filled with humor and understanding, about the need to examine the past and the desire to erase it, and about Turkey itself.

"The characters in The Bastard of Istanbul are so alive they leap off the page to sit beside you on the couch. What womwn!... This is the rare family saga that understands the vaule of both modernity and tradition."

-Susan Isaacs

"Shafak's writing is seductive... The Bastard of Istanbul portrays family as more than merelya function of genetics and fate, folding together history and fiction, the personal and the political into a thing of beauty."

-Elle

"A 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 spellbiding story."

-New York Newsday