Showing results by author "Elif Shafak" in All Categories

Brought to you by Penguin. This audiobook is read by Olivia Vinall, and Elif Shafak reads the Note to Reader at the end of the story. This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water. In the ruins of Nineveh, that...

Brought to you by Penguin. SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2022 THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICK You don't fall in love in Cyprus in the summer of 1974. Not here, not now. In 1974, two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided Cyprus, meet at...

Brought to you by Penguin. The international bestseller from the Booker-shortlisted author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World * One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'* "Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation...

There were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant. We built everything together ...Sixteenth century Istanbul: a stowaway arrives in the city bearing an extraordinary gift for the Sultan. The boy is utterly alone in a foreign land, with no worldly possessions to his name except Chota, a rare and valuable white elephant destined for the palace menagerie. So begins an epic adventure that will see young Jahan rise from lowly origins to the highest ranks of the Sultan's court.

Brought to you by Penguin. A gripping and beautiful novel from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World One rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I want an abortion,' she announces. She is...

Brought to you by Penguin. SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019'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...

An obese woman and her lover, a dwarf, are sick of being stared at wherever they go, and so decide to reverse roles. The man goes out wearing make-up and the woman draws a moustache on her face. But while the woman wants to hide away from the world, the man meets the stares from passers-by head on, compiling his 'Dictionary of Gazes' to explore the boundaries between appearance and reality. Intertwined with the story of a bizarre freak-show organised in Istanbul in the 1880s, The Gaze is a humorous and carnivalesque exploration of what it means to look and be looked at.

Language is the key to understanding and unlocking our complicated world. It is also the key to the human heart. East and West, North and South, regardless of race, sex, gender, colour, religion, ethnicity, nationality or any other category, we are all made of stories. Stories bring us together, but untold stories keep us apart. In losing our voice something in us dies. Words have the power to change minds, move hearts. They can help and heal, but just as easily, they can hurt and destroy. Deep within, we all know that words are magic, but we rarely, if ever, stop to think about ...

'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten.' And so begins the story of Esma, a young Kurdish woman in London trying to come to terms with the terrible murder her brother has committed. Esma tells the story of her family stretching back three generations; back to her grandmother and the births of her mother and aunt, twin sisters, in a village on the edge of the Euphrates.

Brought to you by Penguin. From Booker-shortlisted author Elif Shafak, comes a powerful tale of faith, love and friendship set across Istanbul and Oxford Shirin, Peri and Mona, they were the most unlikely of friends. They were the Sinner, the Believer and the Confused. On a spring evening in...

It feels like the world is falling apart. So how do we keep hold of our optimism? How do we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this world of division? In this beautifully written and illuminating polemic, Booker Prize nominee Elif Shafak reflects on our age of pessimism, when emotions guide and misguide our politics and misinformation and fear are the norm.

Bonbon Palace was once a stately apartment block in Istanbul. Now it is a sadly dilapidated home to ten wildly different individuals and their families. When the rubbish at Bonbon Palace is stolen, a mysterious sequence of events unfold that result in a soul-searching quest for truth. By turns comic and tragic, The Flea Palace is an outstandingly original story driven by a powerful sense of social justice.

A moving novel on the power of friendship in our darkest times, from internationally renowned writer and speaker Elif Shafak. 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.

Was uns trennt, was uns verbindet. Im Jahr 1974 befindet sich Zypern kurz vor dem Bürgerkrieg. Eine Taverne, betrieben von einem schwulen Paar, ist der einzige Ort, an dem sich der Grieche Kostas und die Türkin Defne treffen können. Einzig ein prachtvoller Feigenbaum im Innenhof der Taverne ist Zeuge ihrer glücklichen Begegnungen und ihrer stillen Abschiede. Der Feigenbaum ist auch da, als der Krieg ausbricht, als Menschen auf der ganzen Insel spurlos verschwinden. In der Gegenwart steht der Baum im Garten von Kostas und seiner 16-jährigen Tochter Ada in London.

The complete BBC Radio 3 series exploring how great creative minds responded to the First World War in individual works of art and scholarship World War I saw an unprecedented loss of life in Western Europe, and destruction on a scale no one alive had ever seen. All those who experienced it were...

Londres, 1840. Arthur, un garçon à la mémoire prodigieuse né sur les rives de la Tamise, est engagé comme apprenti dans une imprimerie. Bientôt, son monde s'ouvre bien au-delà des taudis de la capitale anglaise, vers un autre fleuve, le Tigre, et une ancienne cité de Mésopotamie qui abrite les fragments d'un poème oublié. Turquie, 2014. Chassées de leur village au bord du Tigre, Naryn, une petite fille yézidie, et sa grand-mère entreprennent un long voyage, traversant des terres en guerre dans l'espoir d'atteindre la vallée sacrée de leur peuple, en Irak, pour que Naryn y soit baptisée.

Narin ist neun, als in dem ezidischen Dorf am Tigris Planierraupen auftauchen. Ihre Heimat soll einem Dammbauprojekt der türkischen Regierung weichen. Die Großmutter, fest entschlossen, die Enkelin an einem ungestörten Ort taufen zu lassen, bereitet alles für die Reise ins heilige Lalisch-Tal vor. Kurz vor Aufbruch stößt Narin auf das Grab eines gewissen Arthur – direkt neben dem ihrer Ururgroßmutter Leila.

From the Booker Prize finalist, author of The Island of Missing Trees, an enchanting new tale about three characters living along two great rivers, all connected by a single drop of water. "Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it...

En un convulso 1974, mientras el ejército turco ocupa el norte de Chipre, Kostas, un griego cristiano, y Defne, una turca musulmana, se reúnen en secreto bajo las vigas ennegrecidas de la taberna La Higuera Feliz, donde cuelgan ristras de ajos, cebollas y pimientos. Allí, lejos del fragor de la guerra, crece a través de una cavidad en el techo una higuera, testigo del amor de los dos jóvenes, pero también de sus desencuentros, de la destrucción de Nicosia y de la trágica separación de los amantes.

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.