The Bastard of Istanbul is a book by famous Turkish writer Elif Shafak. This book was initially banned. The Bastard of Istanbul is quite different from her other famous book The Forty Rules of Love.
The content of the book Bastard of Istanbul is definitely as bold as its title. The name is bold in the term that it is used in the context of an Islamic country Turkey. Elif Shafak The Bastard of Istanbul was published after lots of trials and it was initially banned. However, after some time, it got a green signal.
The reason behind its banning is, it portrays the characters that are not acceptable in civilized Islamic society. However, Shafak not only portrays bold women characters who rebel against society’s set standard about women but her characters are having sex and having drinks. Moreover, it is about having a child without marriage and does not care about it.
The novel is about a woman who is a rebel and the whole story revolves around her. Women’s characters are all over in the book. The book is about women (good or bad, you can decide after reading).
While reading the whole book, one can think that these women are rebelling, however, in the end, you will realize no matter to what extent a woman is performing rebellious acts, in the end, she saves family dignity. She keeps her mouth shut so her family’s dignity would be saved. This can also raise the question of the fact that many families’ honour is saved because women have shut their mouths.
There are also some historical facts that Shafak presents in The Bastard of Istanbul however, what astonished us is the women of her book. The main character Zeliha who society sees as a bad character woman has an illegitimate daughter and raises her up. The thing that increases our surprise is that she does not really care about it.
Breaking the Suspense of Turkish novel The Bastard of Istanbul:
- We develop curiosity as to who could be the father of this girl. At the end of the story, it turns out Zeliha did not have this girl out of love but she was raped. She remained silent all her life because it was her blood brother who raped her while she was a teenager. Only after his death, she only tells her daughter about her father. (For more detail read the book).
- She does not tell anyone and no one from her family about it. Moreover, her brother moves out of the country after this incident.
- However, this story has many more things as to why her brother raped her. There is one more interesting fact in this book the men of the Zeliha family cannot live longer. They all are dead early, the same thing happened to Zeliha’s grandfather or her father. At the end of the story, her brother the only man in her family also dead. ( is it some curse, you have to figure it out yourself)
- While I am talking about interesting facts, here is one more. One sister of Zeliha has Jinn (she has control over this creature through her knowledge). Through him, she knows before anyone else that her brother raped her sister and the daughter her sister is having is him.
- However, she keeps her mouth shut until she gives poison to her only brother. (in order to get revenge for her sister or to calm down her mind as she was feeling guilty for not speaking up for her).
- Zeliha daughter is as rebellious as her mother. There are a few Armenian characters in the novel too that are linked with this Turkish family.
Definitely, The Bastard of Istanbul is a bold attempt by Elif Shafak, however, one can tell by reading what is a true depiction and what is not. After all it depends on readers what they infer from the writings.
You can download the book from here:
