10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
Turkish writer Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World is the story of Leila, a sex worker who is murdered in Istanbul. The first half of the book is Leila in the 10 minutes and 38 seconds after she was murdered — when your brain stays conscious but your heart has stopped beating. She remembers different scents and tastes and the reader is taken back through her childhood. It’s the last moments of Leila’s consciousness, and the most inventive framing of a plot I’ve read in a long time.
The first half of the novel is those 10 minutes and 38 seconds, and the second half introduces us to Leila’s five friends who set out to give her a proper burial. As Julia Phillips writes in the NYT Book Review, “Where the novel’s first part was a character study, the second is a caper. Shafak’s narrative shifts from the internal to the external, from thoughts to action, and from the summing up of an entire life to the twists of one hectic day. Her skills as a writer — her confident pacing, emotional honesty and political consciousness — unite the two halves, making for a gripping and moving whole.”
Notably, earlier this year, Turkish authorities launched a (bogus) investigation against Shafak for “obscene depictions of sexual abuse.” Shafak told a reporter, “The irony is that this is a country in which we have an escalating number of cases of sexual violence against both women and children. Turkish courts are not taking action, the laws have not been changed. So in a country where they need to take urgent action to deal with sexual violence, instead they’re prosecuting writers. It’s the biggest tragedy. It has become like a witch-hunt.” So, Shafak writing about the country’s attitudes towards sexual violence and sex crimes feels particularly fitting — and brave.
There is much to love and admire about the novel, but what struck me the most was how deftly Shafak painted a portrait of those on the margins of Turkish society. Aptly, the book is dedicated to “To the women of Istanbul and to the city of Istanbul, which is, and has always been, a she-city.”
Rating: ★★★★★
Get it here: https://amzn.to/2Qh9RmB
