Honour - Softcover

Shafak, Elif

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0670921157 ISBN 13: 9780670921157

Publisher: Viking, 2012

Synopsis

From the Orange Prize long-listed and award-winning author of The Forty Rules of Love and The Bastard of Istanbul Elif Shafak, Honour is a novel of love, betrayal and clash of cultures.

'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten'

And so begins the story of Esma a young Kurdish woman in London trying to come to terms with the terrible murder her brother has committed. Esma tells the story of her family stretching back three generations; back to her grandmother and the births of her mother and Aunt in a village on the edge of the Euphrates. Named Pembe and Jamila, meaning Pink and Beautiful rather than the names their mother wanted to call them, Destiny and Enough, the twin girls have very different futures ahead of them all of which will end in tragedy on a street in East London in 1978.

A powerful, brilliant and moving account of murder, love and family set in a Kurdish village, Istanbul and London.

'Vivid storytelling... that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love' Sunday Telegraph

'A gorgeous, jewelled, luxurious book' The Times

'Rich and wide as the Euphrates river along whose banks it begins and ends, Elif Shafak has woven with masterful care and compassion one immigrant family's heartbreaking story - a story nurtured in the terrible silences between men and women trying to grow within ancient ways, all the while growing past them. I loved this book' Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress

'A powerful book; thoughtful, provoking and compassionate' Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat

Elif Shafak is the acclaimed author of The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love and is the most widely read female novelist in Turkey. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is a contributor for The Telegraph, Guardian and the New York Times and her TED talk on the politics of fiction has received 500 000 viewers since July 2010. She is married with two children and divides her time between Istanbul and London.

About this title

Review:

Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent (Daily Telegraph)

A powerful book; thoughtful, provoking and compassionate (Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat)

A gorgeous, jewelled, luxurious book (The Times)

Rich and wide as the Euphrates river along whose banks it begins and ends, Elif Shafak has woven with masterful care and compassion one immigrant family's heartbreaking story - a story nurtured in the terrible silences between men and women trying to grow within ancient ways, all the while growing past them. I loved this book (Sarah Blake, author of The Postmistress)

Elif Shafak tells stories of great urgency, heart, and intellectual acuity. Honour is a powerful tale of family connection and heartbreak, offering us insight and delight in equal measure. This is a compulsively readable novel, an exquisite and deep rendering of the fullness of life. (Aurelie Sheehan, author of The Anxiety of Everyday Objects)

Shafak will challenge Paulo Coelho's dominance (The Independent)

An honour killing is at the centre of this stunning novel... Exotic, evocative and utterly gripping (The Times)

Lushly and memorably magic-realist... This is an extraordinarily skilfully crafted and ambitious narrative (The Independent)

The book calls to mind The Color Purple in the fierceness of its engagement with male violence and its determination to see its characters to a better place. But Shafak is closer to Isabel Allende in spirit, confidence and charm. Her portrayal of Muslim cultures, both traditional and globalising, is as hopeful as it is politically sophisticated. This alone should gain her the world audience she has long deserved (The Guardian)

In Honour, Shafak treats an important, absorbing subject in a fast-paced, internationally familiar style that will make it accessible to a wide readership (Sunday Times)

From the Back Cover:

'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten . . .'

Pembe and Adem Toprak leave Turkey for London. There they make new lives for their family. Yet the traditions and beliefs of their home come with them - carried in the blood of their children, Iskender and Esma. Trapped by past mistakes, the Toprak children find their lives torn apart and transformed by a brutal and chilling crime.

Set in Turkey and London in the 1970s, Honour explores pain and loss, loyalty and betrayal, the clash of tradition and modernity, as well as the love and heartbreak that can tear any family apart.

'Vivid storytelling, a gripping novel . . . scenes blaze with the force of parable' Sunday Telegraph

'A stunning novel. Exotic, evocative and utterly gripping' The Times

'Moving, subtle and ultimately hopeful, Honour is further proof that Shafak is the most exciting Turkish novelist to reach western readers in years' Irish Times

'Extraordinarily skilfully crafted . . . with Shakespearean twists and turns, omens and enigmas, prophecies and destinies' Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0670921157
• ISBN 13: 9780670921157
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352