10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak

312 Pages, Published In 2019

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The novel opens with a murdered prostitute dumped in a trash bin in Istanbul. Her heart has stopped, yet her brain remains active for the next 10m 38s, carrying her through fragments of memory—birth, childhood, family, friendships, and life in Istanbul. Beautifully written, as always by Shafak, the book feels both like a lament and a love letter to Istanbul—a deeply conflicted city suspended between East and West, religions and secularism, tradition and modernity. Dark, humane, and moving.