The Bastard Of Istanbul

“Once there was; once there wasn’t.

God’s creatures were as plentiful as grains

And talking too much was a sin....

Many of you might be judging the content inside from its title, but I assure you that you will find more once you start reading.

The story revolves around 19 years old Asya Kazanci who is Zeliha Kazanci daughter and they live together with Zeliha’s other three sisters, mother and a great grandmother in Istanbul, Turkey. None of the ladies are married except Auntie Banu, but she lives with her family instead of her husband because of her own reasons. They also have a brother, Mustafa, who lives in Arizona, US and never visited Istanbul in last 20 years. He is married there with an American woman who has a daughter Armanoush from her first husband, who happened to be an Armenian. Armanoush/ Amy lives with her mother and stepfather in Arizona while visits his father’s family in the other city sometimes. Another reason that he stays in the US because of the curse that runs in Kazanci family that all of its men die in their 40s and Mustafa dies in.....

Zeliha is the most rebellious woman in the Kazanci family and runs a tattoo parlour. The uncontrollable streak passes to Asya’s personality as well who don’t like traditional living standards or norms that her family follows, but she tries to stay away from it as much as she can. She has her own social circle of elders double her age that matches her philosophical mindset. 

Asya is an illegitimate child of Zeliha and the thought of finding her father or getting know about intrigues her the most while no one talks about it in the family as they also do not have any idea about the man. BUT, other than Zeliha, there is someone else in the family too who knows about Asya’s father and even Zeliha is not aware of it....

Apart from being controversial in terms of its story, the novel also hit the Turk and Armenian conflicts occurred in 1915. Elif Shafak faced sentence and hearings for writing this part of history that irked Turk government and its citizens. 

All in all, the novel is a must-read that will captivate you until the end as you will get to know the purpose of Armanoush's arrival in Turkey and finally find out about Asya's 'father'!