Leila’s Death – A flashback

Book Review

Title: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

Author: Elif Shafak

Publisher: Penguin 2019

Pages: 310

This is a novel that starts with the death of its protagonist. Leila, a prostitute in Istanbul, is murdered in the night. Her body is found in the morning, dumped among garbage. The message by the killers is that she is garbage. The novel tells her story along with that of a few other people who are social outcasts.

Nalan (transvestite), Zaynab (dwarf), Humeyra (unloved daughter-in-law), Jameelah (unloved daughter), and Sinan (helpless, spineless man) are the other major characters. They are all Muslims (that matters). Jameelah is from Somalia and Zaynab from Lebanon. The others are from Turkey itself. They are all driven to Istanbul – “city of the discontented and dreamers” & “city of scars” – by similar reasons except Sinan who came in search of his love, Leila.

The plot unfolds mostly in the Street of Brothels and other such shady places. Leila did not belong to Istanbul. She was driven there by a tragic fate. Her own uncle exploited her sexually until she became pregnant at the age of 16. Instead of questioning the uncle, the patriarchy makes Leila the culprit. Didn’t she entice the uncle with her girlish charms? The solution arrived at by the men in the family is that Leila will marry the uncle’s son though he is younger to her. Leila refuses. “This house is full of lies and deceptions,” she explodes much to the chagrin of the menfolk whose religion has its own ways of making lies and deceptions look like virtues besides keeping women behind the veils given by men. “Our lives have never been normal! We are not a normal family… Why are you always pretending?”

Leila runs away from those pretensions hoping to make her honest living in the huge city of Istanbul. But the city has more pretensions, bigger deceptions and overwhelming lies. It makes her a prostitute sooner than anyone would have expected.

The stories of the other major women in the novel are quite similar. By telling their stories, Elif Shafak is holding a mirror up to the patriarchal society in Turkey. She is a staunch feminist and a supporter of the rights of the marginalized people like the LGBTQ+. The men in this novel emerge as either villains or effete people.

Sinan is one of the few men in the novel who seem harmless. He is a childhood friend of Leila. He comes to Istanbul from their village in search of Leila. But he does nothing to rescue her from the brothel. His virtues are no better than the deceptive practices of the pious men in his society. Is there something radically wrong with Islam? Shafak seems to be raising that question again and again.

There is one strong man, though, who is also good: Ali, the revolutionary. He rescues Leila from the brothel. But the revolution doesn’t reach anywhere. The revolutionaries are divided among themselves. “Maoists despised Leninists, and the Leninists loathed the anarchists.” Ali belongs to yet another faction, the Trotskyists. Too many revolutionaries ruin a revolution, reflects Leila. Ali doesn’t live long.

The novel is enchanting so far. By now Leila’s mind has lived about ten minutes after her body is dead. The strength of her mind is ebbing too. She won’t be able to tell us any more about herself or the others. The novelist goes on with what happened later. What did Leila’s friends do to her body which had already been buried in the Cemetery of the Companionless as required by the law without any ritual or tombstone?

This last part of the novel reads like mere pulp fiction. Tragedy turns into farce. Reading this part, I wondered why the Booker Prize team shortlisted this novel at all. Even in the other parts, the narration is quite flat most of the time. The characters with their unique natures fascinate us. But they deserved a better narrative.

Shafak is a famous writer who has won many awards. This novel may not have got the best from her. It is worth reading, nevertheless. It does hold a mirror up to the society in Turkey and, perhaps, to the whole Islamic society in general.