The Bastard of Istanbul: Elif Shafak’s Powerful Multigenerational Saga of Family Secrets, Identity, and the Shadows of History

Bastards of Istanbul by @shafakelif is a captivating novel that weaves together culture, identity, and history in the vibrant city of Istanbul.The story revolves around two families, each with its own secrets and emotional baggage. Asya Kazancı, a young woman living in Istanbul, is the focal point of the narrative. Raised by her rebellious and enigmatic mother, she grapples with her identity and family heritage while harbouring a deep curiosity about her heritage. Meanwhile, across the world in Arizona, an Armenian-American woman named Armanoush seeks answers about her family's past, leading her to the Kazancı family in Istanbul.Through richly drawn characters, the book explores complex family dynamics, tackles sensitive historical issues like the Armenian Genocide, and delves into contemporary themes like tradition versus modernity and women's rights.Shafak has beautifully crafted this intellectually stimulating novel that skillfully examines family, heritage, and the universal quest for self-discovery. Shafak's storytelling skills shine through, making this book a highly recommended read for anyone who enjoys thought-provoking fiction with a strong sense of cultural immersion.

---@elifshafak Just finished *The Bastards of Istanbul.*Elif, you did not write a novel. You wrote a city that breathes, grieves, and refuses to apologise for either.What undoes you first is Zeliha — that furious, tender, tattooed woman who carries her secret not as shame but as armour. She does not ask to be understood. She simply exists, in full — defiant, wounded, magnetic. And then Asya, her daughter in everything but name, who has turned the absence of a past into a philosophy of indifference — because indifference is the only thing that doesn't hurt on demand.Two women. Same blood. Same silence. Different ways of surviving it.And then you bring Armanoush across the ocean — an Armenian girl carrying her community's grief like a dowry she never asked for — into that Istanbul household. Two families. Two histories. One table. You don't preach communal harmony. You don't need to. You simply seat them together, feed them, and let the walls between them develop cracks — not through grand gestures, but through the terrifying ordinariness of shared meals and late nights and the realisation that the other side's pain is just as old and just as real as your own. That is the most radical act of humanity — not a declaration, but a dinner.And running underneath all of it — so quietly you almost miss it — is your conversation with death. The Kazanci men who die young, as if on schedule. The curse treated with dark humour, almost a shrug. Death in this book is not tragedy — it is punctuation. It arrives without drama, without permission, folding itself into the ordinary. Which is precisely how you remind us that mortality is not an event. It is a condition. We are all living inside it, trading recipes and old wounds, pretending the clock is not running.Istanbul is the only city I know that has been conquered, burned, mourned, and reinvented so many times that it has simply stopped distinguishing between loss and identity. You have written that city from the inside.*The Bastard of Istanbul* is not about what happened in 1915. It is about what happens to people — and peoples — who must decide, every single day, whether to remember or survive.Sometimes, you showed us, they are the same thing.#ElifShafak #TheBastardOfIstanbul #BookReview #Istanbul #Literature #WomensVoices #Humanity

This beautiful work of fiction by Elif Shafak revolves around Asya Kazanci & Armanoush sharing a similar genetic heritage. Enbodying in itself an absolute vibrance of Turkish as well as Armanian legacy, the book carries a spectacular brightness within itself. Asya is depicted to be raised by Kazanci females, surrounded by all her aunts, Petite Ma & Grandmother Gulsum in an Ethnic Turkish household. While Asya's distant cousin Armanoush, an Armenian American being raised by an American Mother and an Arbanian father along with the complete Tchakhmakhchian family. Filled with the mention of mouthwatering Turkish cuisines, canary & cats makes the reader feel transported to Istanbul. The plot finds itself travelling along intermingled family stories, carrying mysteries and secrets of past alongwith. Full of abundant twists and turns this book categorises as an interesting read.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this book.Shafak is a great writer and the book did expand a bit of my knowledge about Istanbul and its history but that it isn't a novel.While reading I got the feeling that Shafak wanted to talk about history and wanted to do it through fiction so she invented the characters in thr book. But the family history is so twisted it at times felt incredulous.Nevertheless, it is a decently written book. Though not Shafaks' best work. So if you are new to her writings don't pick this up. Pick forty rules of love instead.

Love the book, The story writing. Even the package was provided in a good condition. This is one of a good books I'll recommend you to read

It's quite an engrossing book. Honestly, after reading this I'm already in love with Istanbul and the food! I so wannna visit Turkey and experience the food, culture, lifestyle and climate first hand.Coming back to the book, in my opinion I did find certain parts too streched and immensely detailed but then the beauty does reside in the details after all. The mental trauma of the past, the baggage of knowledge that each character possesses have been described beautifully. The minute details of even the tea glasses just goes on to show how much the author is dedicated in her writing.All the stories of every character is weaved into a beautiful tapestry of emotions, feelings, love and lots of food. It's a recommended read while you're traveling or just lounging on a weekend.

The book makes you want to revisit the story again and again even after you’re done reading it. Very beautiful

It's an experience for someone who has little or no knowledge of Turkish and Armenian culture. The lives of the characters interwoven beautifully manifesting into an interesting journey where you are keen to learn how it's going to end and it doesn't disappoint. I would totally recommend it.

This was a well written and fascinating story across both time and place. The way the different pieces are revolving together kept the intrigue. Some beautiful use of language.

物語はイスタンブールで始まります。雨の降るイスタンブール、中絶のために病院に向かう19歳のゼリハ。病院に到着し、これから手術という時に、ゼリハは無意識に泣きわめき、手術は中止に。ゼリハの家族、カザンツィ家は女性ばかり。というのも、カザンツィ家の男は皆若くして亡くなってしまうのです。5人の子供たちの中でただ一人の男、ムスタファは、カザンツィ家の男のジンクスを逃れるために、アメリカへと送り出されたのでした。　アメリカに渡ったムスタファが出会ったのは、アルメニア人のバルサムと離婚したばかりで、その結婚で生まれた子供アルマヌシュを連れたローズ。アルメニアと歴史的確執のあるトルコ人と付き合うことで、バルサムとの結婚生活に悉く首を突っ込んできたアルメニア人家族に、そしてバルサムにささやかな復讐をしてやろうというのです。　アルメニア人の血をひきながら、トルコ人の継父ムスタファを持ち、実父バルサムのアルメニア人家族にも定期的に会うアルマヌシュ。大学生になった彼女はある日、自らのルーツを知るために、誰にも秘密でイスタンブールに向かい、ムスタファの家族を訪ねます。そこで彼女は、ゼリハの娘、アスヤに出会うのでした。トルコとアルメニアの確執の歴史、アスヤの家族、アルマヌシュを取り囲む二つの家族、それぞれの過去、そして最後に明かされるアスヤの父親。たくさんのストーリーが少しずつ明らかになっていきます。読んでいくほどに、いつの間にか頭の中で出来上がっていく一人一人の登場人物のイメージ。読むほどに、どのように物語が進んでいくのかが知りたくてしょうがなくなる。そんな、小説を読むことの喜びがぎっしり詰まっていることは間違いないです。（このような幼稚なことしか書けないのは私の読書経験が未熟だからであって、この本が楽しくて陽気なだけの本だというわけではないです）　歴史問題、ジェンダー、アイデンティティ、文学的技巧など色々な視点から批評することはできるのでしょうが、あいにく私はそういうものには興味はありません。もしそういう点からこの本を批評もしくは批判して、その視点のためにこの本に否定的な評価を下すような人がいるのであれば、大変もったいないことだと個人的には思います。　この本はシャファクさんが英語で執筆した2つ目の小説のようです。英語はとても読みやすく、思考をなぞるように丁寧かつ流れるような文体になっています。ところどころに出てくるトルコ語やアルメニア語（のラテンアルファベット転写）は、やはりシャファクさんならではのものです（そのため、今さらですが、上のあらすじで書いたカタカナの人名は、音がそれで合っているのか確証はありません）。やや難しい単語も出てきますので、フラストレーションにならない程度に辞書を引きながら読むことになると思います。一つだけこの作品に注文をつけられるとすれば、登場人物が出尽くすまでの最初の部分が結構長く、しかも情景描写や心理描写等がこの最初の部分に特に多いので、読者が作品に惹きこまれてページがどんどん進むようになるまで、若干のエネルギーが必要だということです。　総評としては、読んでいる時の惹きこまれ方や読了感はすさまじいです。そういう書き方がされています。登場人物のキャラクターの豊かさ、いくつものストーリーが少しずつ紡がれていく様は見事です。日本人にとっての英語の読み物としては、上級者向けだとは思いますが、難解な文章ではないので多くの方がチャレンジする価値があると思います。なかなかの大作です、気になった方は是非読んでみてください！

I found the first 20 pages difficult and thought, ohh, really not liking it.. and then whoooooooooosh got swept into Istanbul, the food, the women, the various characters in the book.I wish it had ended differently, and if i ever meet the author I will ask her why the plot twisted the way it did..Would it have been a fairy tale had it not?

It would take me too much time and energy to try to tell why i LOVED this book and why i will never like a fictional book that much, but at the end of the book the author tells us why she writes in English and she says : « The Bastard of Istanbul is a novel that concentrates on an Armenian and a Turkish family and the unspoken atrocities of the past », and in my opinion, there is no best way to summarise this book called « The Bastard of Istanbul » but that mostly talk about the Armenian genocide.

Ha llegado en perfecto estado