10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

Memory outlasts the body by a few minutes, and Elif Shafak uses that narrow interval to hold an entire life. Set largely in Istanbul, the novel reconstructs a woman's past through sensory recollection and through the friends who stood by her when family and city would not. Shafak writes about migration, poverty and dignity without sermonising, and the later chapters turn toward what friendship still owes the dead. Closer look: • A Booker Prize-shortlisted work of literary fiction • Istanbul rendered through its margins rather than its landmarks • Friendship, belonging and social exclusion as central concerns • A structure organised by recollection rather than chronology For readers of literary and translated fiction, book clubs and gift buyers seeking something substantial, carried by Boipoka.