Three Daughters of Eve - Softcover

Elif Shafak

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241979927 ISBN 13: 9780241979921

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2017

Synopsis

Set across Istanbul and Oxford, from the 1980s to the present day, Three Daughters of Eve is a sweeping tale of faith and friendship, tradition and modernity, love and an unexpected betrayal.

Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife and mother, 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 nineteen year old sent abroad for the first time. To her dazzling, rebellious Professor and his life-changing course on God. To the house she shares with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about identity, Islam and feminism. And finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart.

Shirin, Peri and Mona, they were the most unlikely of friends. They were the Sinner, the Believer and the Confused.

About this title

About the Author

Elif Shafak is the acclaimed author of fifteen books including The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour, and is the most widely read female writer in Turkey. Her work has been translated into over forty languages and she regularly contributes to publications including The New York Times, the Guardian and Time magazine. Elif has been longlisted for the Orange Prize, the Baileys Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award, and shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. She lives in London and can be found at www.elifshafak.com.

Review

"Safak is one of Turkey's most popular novelists, and her fiction and nonfiction has been translated around the world. Three Daughters of Eve, her 10th novel, takes place in contemporary Istanbul, but looks back on an earlier era, as Peri, a wealthy housewife, recalls her friendship with two fellow students at Oxford University. Together, these three young women became close through their studies, debating the role of women in Islam, and falling under the influence of a charismatic but controversial professor. The scandal that broke them apart still haunts Peri. - The Millions, "Most Anticipated"

"Shafak is a brilliant chronicler of the ills that plague contemporary society and once again proves her mettle." - Booklist

"[Shafak's] portrait of a woman in existential crisis feels universal, shining clarifying light on Islam--and religious spirituality in general--within the frame of today's world." - Kirkus Reviews

"Readers interested in debates about the nature of God will find the book intriguing." - Publishers Weekly

"Elif Shafak's urgent, topical novel explores the ambiguities and dangers of being caught in the Land of Between. The book's protagonist, Peri, is torn between her mother and her father, between her love and hate for a charismatic professor, between the double lures of religiosity and secularism. Three Daughters of Eve upends the omnipresent but crude truisms of East and West, oppression and liberation, right and wrong that continue to divide, torment, and haunt us all."- Siri Hustvedt

"An impressive achievement, a novel populated by swashbuckling soldiers, mysterious Gypsies and more than a few guileless courtesans. It's also a love poem to the cosmopolitan beauty of Istanbul. . . As she traces these characters' colorful stories, Shafak unfurls what may be her most accomplished novel -- and is certainly her most expansive." - The New York Times Book Review on THE ARCHITECT'S APPRENTICE

"Infused with Sufi mysticism and Rumi’s incomparable lyrics, and sweetly human in its embrace of our flaws and failings, Shafak’s seductive, shrewd, and affecting novel brilliantly revives the revelations of Shams and Rumi, and daringly illuminates the differences between religion and spirituality, censure and compassion, fear and love of life in our own violent world." - Booklist on THE FORTY RULES OF LOVE

"Exotic, evocative and utterly gripping." - The Times on HONOUR

"Vivid storytelling that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love." - Sunday Telegraph on HONOUR

"Shocking, ambitious, exuberant." - The Observer on THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0241979927
• ISBN 13: 9780241979921
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 367