10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World () is a 2019 novel by Turkish writer Elif Shafak and her eleventh overall."Storytelling is about swimming against the tide of the times: Elif Shafak", www.outlookindia.com, October 20, 2019. It is a one-woman story about a sex worker in Istanbul."10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak review – one woman's story", The Guardian, June 12, 2019."Shafak’s ‘10 Minutes’ attempts to represent sex workers but falls short", The Michigan Daily, October 8, 2019. It was released by Viking Press in 2019, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize, and in 2020 for the Ondaatje Prize.
Summary 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in This Strange World opens in 1990 with "Tequila Leila", who is a prostitute."10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak review – powerful but preachy", Our Daily Read, June 16, 2019. The story has her five outcast friends, who do not share a worthy importance in an illiberal country. Leila enters the state of awareness in her last moments, after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul. "While the Turkish sun rises above her and her friends asleep soundly nearby, she contemplates her mortal existence before eternal rest." In the last minutes she recalls her previous life; "the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life—friends who are now desperately trying to find her...""10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World", Curtis Brown."10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Elif Shafak" , Penguin."10 MINUTES 38 SECONDS IN THIS STRANGE WORLD" , "easons", June 6, 2019.
Awards Shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize."The Booker Prize - The Shortlist", "The Booker Prizes", 2019"Booker Prize 2019: The books to read, and the ones you can skip", The Irish Times, October 12, 2019"Booker prize shortlist 2019: who to put your money on", The Guardian, October 13, 2019"Booker Prize 2019: Atwood, Rushdie and four emerging authors up for prize", The Statesman, October 14, 2019. The Blackwell's Book of the Year, 2019 Shortlisted for RSL Ondaatje Prize, 2020
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