Admittedly I haven’t read all the books long-and-shortlisted for the Man Booker prize this year, but this is certainly my favourite so far, with more soul than the hotly anticipated but only lukewarm quality of The Testaments, one of the joint winners.
Elif Shafak (famous for her wonderful TED Talk, although it took me a little while to make the connection) writes a heartfelt and honest novel about a prostitute called Leila, who after her murder, spends her last ten minutes and 38 seconds of consciousness going over the key points in her life, and the people with most significance. Set in Turkey, with real places and events, the novel sings with authenticity and earnestness.
Although there are awful moments in her childhood that contribute to her falling victim to this most dangerous of professions, there are many beautiful things in Leila’s life as well, she is loved by a good man, and has the closest and most wonderful of friends. Her first moments with each are also explored in glorious detail.
The last few chapters of this novel, while slower, are appropriately handed over to these wonderful friends – Nostalgia Nalan, Hollywood Humerya, Sabotage Sinan and Zaynab122 – as they try to save their dear friend from burial in the Cemetery of the Companionless, a real place in which outcasts and the lost are buried. But their girl is truly loved – and they will do anything to make sure this isn’t her final resting place.
This is a beautiful example of literature’s power to move and honour the lives of those we would otherwise overlook. So far it would have been my choice.
Welloflostplots 