The Bastard of Istanbul – A Tale of Secrets, Curses, and the Weight of the Past

"One rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a young woman walks into a doctor’s office. ‘I need to have an abortion,’ she declares. What happens next will change her life forever…"

A House of Women, A Legacy of Loss

In the heart of Istanbul, the Kazancı household is unlike any other—a house ruled by women, where secrets linger in the air like the scent of spices. A family curse looms over them, claiming the lives of all Kazancı men before they reach their forties. In this matriarchal world, rebellious and headstrong Asya Kazancı struggles with her identity, caught between modernity and tradition, between the past and the present.

Her mother, Zeliha, bold and defiant, runs a tattoo parlor. Banu, her clairvoyant aunt, peers into the unseen. Feride, ever-anxious, sees catastrophe at every turn. And then, into this house of women, steps a stranger from across the ocean—Armanoush, Asya’s Armenian-American cousin, searching for the missing pieces of her own story.

A City of Two Souls, A Past That Refuses to Fade

As Istanbul’s winding streets whisper of bygone days, Armanoush’s arrival stirs the ghosts of history. Long-buried family secrets unravel, revealing painful truths about love, exile, and an unspoken past that binds them all.

Elif Shafak’s spellbinding novel is a tale of curses and resilience, of wounds and healing, of a city that bridges continents but remains divided by memory.

Will the Kazancı women break free from the shadows of the past? Or will history repeat itself, claiming yet another soul?

A lyrical and deeply moving novel, The Bastard of Istanbul is a journey through love and loss, identity and belonging—a story that lingers long after the last page is turned.