Three Daughters of Eve

Description

A powerful, sweeping tale of faith, love and friendship set across Istanbul and Oxford Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground - an old Polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past - and a love - Peri had tried desperately to forget. The photograph takes Peri back to Oxford University, as an eighteen-year-old sent abroad for the first time- to her dazzling, rebellious professor and his life-changing course on God, to her home with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about Islam and femininity and, finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart.

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels. Her work has been translated into fifty languages. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She is a member of World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy and a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). An advocate for women's rights, LGBT rights and freedom of speech, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice a TED global speaker, each time receiving a standing ovation. Shafak contributes to many major publications around the world and she has been awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2017 she was chosen by Politico as one of the twelve people who would make the world better. She has judged numerous literary prizes and is chairing the Wellcome Prize 2019. Find out more about Elif Shafak on her website- www.elifshafak.com

A terrific book. Poetic, poignant, trenchant. -- Ian Rankin An intelligent, fierce and beguiling read * Financial Times * A thoughtful, charming book that offers a connection to other worlds, perspectives and possibilities * Sunday Times * An intense, discursive and absorbing novel * Observer * One of the most important writers at work today, Elif Shafak eloquently explores Turkey's tumultuous present and past. Her magnificent latest moves between Istanbul and Oxford in a fascinating exploration of faith and friendship, rich and poor, and the devastating clash of tradition and modernity * Independent * A brilliant and moving novel. Elif Shafak writes about religion without superficiality or special pleading, retaining a sense of its impossible possibility or its possible impossibility. Three Daughters of Eve is a remarkable accomplishment -- Richard Holloway Elif Shafak's writing leaps off the page. In Three Daughters of Eve she takes us spine-tinglingly right under the skin of three women, exposing the strains of friendship through love and loss. An utterly engrossing read. -- Frances Osborne, bestselling author of The Bolter Shafak's topical 10th novel is both an interrogation and a defence of Muslim identity -- Rebecca Rose * Financial Times * Luscious, heartbreaking, completely absorbing. It is a full-blown saga of emotion and character, straddling countries, cultures and languages, exploring its women's ambitions and desires; and at the same time a steady-eyed examination of the nameless rules - of femininity, duty, belief and behaviour - that keep us in line and under control. This is an absolutely consuming novel about women who know what they want, and a warning about the price we pay, written with the fluency and depth of an author at the very top of her game. -- Bidisha Exuberant, epic and comic, fantastical and realistic . . . like all good stories it conveys deeper meanings about human experience -- Financial Times on 'The Architect's Apprentice' A powerful book; thoughtful, provoking and compassionate -- Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, on 'Honour' A brave and passionate novel -- Paul Theroux on 'Bastard of Istanbul' Vivid storytelling... that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love -- Sunday Telegraph on 'Honour' 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 on 'Honour' *