10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

A truly captivating work of immense power and beauty
Haunting, moving, beautifully written
A rich, sensual novel… This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty. * Financial Times *
One of the best writers in the world today
Shafak is the most exciting Turkish novelist to reach western readers in years * Irish Times *
A vivid carnival of life and death, cruelty and kindness, love, politics and deep humanity. This is only possible in the hands of a consummate storyteller. Elif Shafak’s lyrical command of language and narrative is breathtaking. Brilliant!
Elif Shafak brings into the written realm what so many others want to leave outside. Spend more than ten minutes and 38 seconds in this world of the estranged. Shafak makes a new home for us in words
Elif Shafak’s extraordinary Ten Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World is a work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness, a wild shout of life from out of the lower depths of destitution and prostitution, indeed from beyond the grave itself. Every page throbs with unruly vitality, the sense- saturating colours scents and sounds of raw Istanbul, all registered with poetic sharpness. It’s a book which for all its ordeals is a profoundly moving, at times lyrical, celebration of humanity’s obstinate fight for life against the steepest of odds
A heartbreaking meditation on the ways in which social forces can destroy a life. Elif Shafak can be unsparing, lyrical, political, intimate… Several novels live in this one, and all of them are moving, generous and elegantly written
Deeply moving, imaginative. Shafak writes with immense compassion * Sunday Times *

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-seven languages. The author of twenty books, fourteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak’s previous novel, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, was the UK’s bestselling literary hardback novel of 2025, selling over 500,000 copies. Her work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, amongst others, and she is currently nominated for ‘Author of the Year’ at the British Book Awards. Elif Shafak was appointed President of the Royal Society of Literature in 2025. Her books have sold several million copies worldwide.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.