Elif Shafak is one of my favorite authors for the kind of writing that makes me marvel at its beauty while reeling at its impact. Whether it’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, about how long the brain works after death or The Island of Missing Trees, set in Cyprus, she embraces difficult topics and weaves them into incomparable stories. In her latest, ... Read More...
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
A Turkish woman lying murdered in a rubbish bin hardly seems like the appropriate subject for a piercingly tender novel about the damage done to innocence in childhood and the bonds of friendship as family, but 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World is a singular work that defies labels. The same is true of the dead woman, Leila, who, at 40 years old, has been a prostitute ... Read More...
The Island of Missing Trees
Cyprus is a country literally divided, right down to its capital. In 1960 when the British finally left they repeated their practice of leaving a political vacuum by not resolving issues between existing groups to ensure a peaceful transition. As a result, the island’s population, mixed between a Greek majority and a Turkish minority, lived with simmering resentments until the ... Read More...
