Original language:
English Translated from: English
Authors: Shafak, Elif
Translated by: Bielskytė, Eglė
ISBN: 978-9986-16-772-3
Published in: Vilnius
Published on: 2010
Publisher: Tyto alba
‘‘The Bastard of Istanbul‘‘ is a mysterious novel in which both past and present overlaps, a painful history of Turkish and Armenian people is being discussed. Also, roots of two different families mengle and secrets of those families finally turn out.
The begining of a book is quite tragical. A young turkish woman goes to see a doctor in order to end her pregnancy but things work out different, thus, change a lot. Further writer tells a story about teen girl who lives in Istanbul. Her name is Asya Kazanci and she is quite strange nihilist. Her life is tough because she lives with six aunties and somehow all men of their family pass away suddenly at early age. At the same time a portret of Armanoush Tchakhmakhchian is being developed. Armanoush is an Armenian origin American who lives in Arizona with her paranoid mother and Turk stepfather. Sometimes she travels to San Francisco to visit her father‘s family. Contrary to Asya, Armanoush enjoys life and wants to get to know as much as possible about her family roots, for this reason, one day she decides to come to Istanbul.
When Armanoush comes to Istanbul a lot of things happen. Even though, Asya and Armanoush see the world in different ways, they still find few things in common. Girls discuss a delicate things about history of Armenia and Turkey and found out that they both Asya and Armanoush suffer from too much love of their families. Despite that, Istanbul could not be called Istanbul if there were no magical things happening. It is because one of plenty Asya‘s aunties starts to cooperate with magical genie. As she asks genie for a help, he shows to her a complicated history of Armanoush family. Those facts that genie shows are so difficult that Asya‘s aunty is even afraid to tell anyone about that. Finally, a novel ends up in unexpected way. Although the ending is quite shocking, finally all secrets of both families turn out.
To put everything in a nutshell, this is a novel about secrets, destiny, youth and history. In other words, it is an entire of delicate mixed things. Even though it is a complicated story, it makes to think about how cruel and confusing life can be. Also, it shows how many secrets there are in lives of others and how much we cannot even suspect that is or was going on.
Elif Shafak (born 1971) is one of the most famous turkish writters from younger geneteration. She already have published thirteen books. A writer was born in Spain, have lived in many different cities and now she lives in both London and Istanbul. There is strongly expressed connection between her and Turkey culture in her novels. What is more, most of plots of Elif‘s Shafak‘s books are related to history of Ottoman Epire, Turkey, Armenia. Also, mysticism of Islam and searching of nowadays Turk‘s identity. However, this writter is a cosmopolitan who writes both in english and turkish and explores the world not only in the way how Turks see it but also how other people from different countries see it.