The Bastard of Istanbul The powerful novel about family secrets from the award-winning author of The Island of Missing Trees

<p><b>A gripping and beautiful novel from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of <i>The Island of Missing Trees</i> and <i>10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World</i></b><br><br>One rainy afternoon in Istanbul a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I want an abortion,' she announces. She is nineteen years old, and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life, and the lives of everyone around her.<br><br> Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul. A mysterious curse causes all the men to die by the age of 41, so it is a house of women, among them her beautiful, rebellious mother, Zeliha, clairvoyant Auntie Banu and bar-brawl widow, Auntie Cevriye. But when Asya’s Armenian-American cousin Armanoush comes to stay, long hidden family secrets connected with Turkey's turbulent past begin to emerge. <br><br>'Wonderfully magical, incredible, breathtaking...will have you gasping with disbelief in the last few pages' <i>Sunday Express</i><br><br><b>'A beautiful book, the finest I have read about Turkey' <i>Irish Times</i></b><br><br><b>'Heartbreaking...the beauty of Islam pervades Shafak's book' <i>Vogue</i></b><br><br><b>*** ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, </b><i><b>THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY</b></i><b>, IS AVAILABLE NOW ***</b></p>