10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 `Expect vibrant, vivid and eye-opening descriptions of Middle Eastern life propelled by a tender storyline, all in Shafak`s haunting, beautiful and considered prose` Vanity Fair `Incredibly sensuous and poetic and evocative` Pandora Sykes, The High Low `Richly uplifting... truly beautiful writing` Nicola Sturgeon `In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila`s consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore...` 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 . . .