The stunning, timely new novel from the acclaimed, internationally
bestselling author of The Architect's Apprentice and The Bastard of
Istanbul.
Peri, a married, wealthy, beautiful Turkish woman, 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.
Three Daughters of Eve is set over an evening in contemporary
Istanbul, as Peri arrives at the party and navigates the tensions that
simmer in this crossroads country between East and West, religious and
secular, rich and poor. Over the course of the dinner, and amidst an
opulence that is surely ill-begotten, terrorist attacks occur across the
city. Competing in Peri's mind however are the memories invoked by her
almost-lost polaroid, of the time years earlier when she was sent abroad
for the first time, to attend Oxford University. As a young woman there,
she had become friends with the charming, adventurous Shirin, a fully
assimilated Iranian girl, and Mona, a devout Egyptian-American. Their
arguments about Islam and feminism find focus in the charismatic but
controversial Professor Azur, who teaches divinity, but in unorthodox
ways. As the terrorist attacks come ever closer, Peri is moved to recall
the scandal that tore them all apart.
Elif Shafak is the number one bestselling novelist in her native Turkey,
and her work is translated and celebrated around the world. In Three
Daughters of Eve, she has given us a rich and moving story that
humanizes and personalizes one of the most profound sea changes of the
modern world.
