Author(s): Elif Shafak

Fiction

For Leila, each minute after her death recalls a sensuous memory: spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the birth of a yearned-for son; bubbling vats of lemon and sugar to wax women's legs while men are at prayer; the cardamom coffee she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each fading memory brings back the friends she made in her bittersweet life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her . . . 'One of the most important writers at work today' Independent

Staff Notes: This book begins with a fascinating hypoethical question: what if, after our body dies, our minds keep working for a short time? With this idea in mind, Elif Shafak transports us into the ailing consciousness of a woman murdered and discarded in Istanbul. What recollections surge forth in her last moments? An astounding work of great originality. - Charlotte