10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

In the opening pages, Tequila Leila is already dead — her body dumped in a bin on the outskirts of Istanbul. But the brain, science tells us, goes on working for a short time after the heart stops. Across the ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds that her mind remains active, Leila's life returns to her in a rush of sensory memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, the smell of cardamom coffee, the specific griefs and joys that made her who she was.

Each memory summons a person, and through them the novel assembles the story of Leila's life — a girl born into a conservative family in a provincial town, whose path leads her to Istanbul and, eventually, to work in the city's red-light district. It also assembles her true family: five fierce, loyal friends, each an outsider, who refuse to let her be forgotten.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Elif Shafak's novel is a tender, angry, and richly sensory portrait of the people a society casts to its margins — a celebration of chosen family and a lament for the women a culture would rather not see.