Elif Shafak is an award-winning Turkish-British writer and an outspoken advocate for women, children and minority rights. “10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World” shines a light on the traumas women’s minds and bodies endure in a patriarchal society. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019 just as the writer was being investigated in Turkey for condoning child abuse and sexual violence. As Shafak told in an interview, “The irony is that … in a country where they need to take urgent action to deal with sexual violence, instead they’re prosecuting writers.” This multilayered novel offers a glimpse into women’s lives in Turkey and renders a portrait of a strong and free-spirited woman who retains her humanity in the face of life’s challenges.

'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore...'

For Leila, each minute after her death recalls a sensuous memory: spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the birth of a yearned-for son; bubbling vats of lemon and sugar to wax women's legs while men are at prayer; the cardamom coffee she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each fading memory brings back the friends she made in her bittersweet life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her . . .

'Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end' Philippe Sands

'Elif Shafak brings into the written realm what so many others want to leave outside. Spend more than ten minutes and 38 seconds in this world of the estranged. Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann

'Elif Shafak's extraordinary 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World is a work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness' Simon Schama

'A rich, sensual novel... This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty.' Financial Times

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2019 and RSL Ondaatje Prize;

Longlisted or the Dublin Literary Award;

Chosen as Blackwell's Book of the Year

'Expect vibrant, vivid and eye-opening descriptions of Middle Eastern life propelled by a tender storyline, all in Shafak's haunting, beautiful and considered prose' Vanity Fair

'Incredibly sensuous and poetic and evocative' Pandora Sykes

'Richly uplifting... truly beautiful writing' Nicola Sturgeon

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