Review of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak

*10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World* by Elif Shafak (2021). Published by Bloomsbury Publishing.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

This blog post is interesting to me because lately, I’ve been struggling to get in my reading time. I was working for the longest time as a freelancer and contractor, but recently pivoted to an 8-5 job where I’m in an office. It’s not hybrid, so I’m always at home trying to put the puzzle pieces together of how I’ll get my reading done. I also continue working on this blog when I’m not at work, so the Instagram reels I’m fed about a 5-9 feel too real right now.

Anyways, I am trying to find that time to read here and there. Somehow I’m still on track for my Goodreads goal, even though I’ve been slowly giving up on the notion of reading goals in life. I think they can be a little too much pressure and takes the fun off of reading at the end of the day, and I want to read because I want to stay in touch with literature while also pursuing my side career as a writer.

After a lovely ten day trip to Istanbul, I’ve been looking for more Turkish literature to read in my free time. Although my trip was very difficult in some ways (our cat died in the middle of it and we were having some family issues internally), I found myself really wanting to learn more about Turkey, whether it’s through food, film, or literature.

So I’ve been reading more Turkish and Turk diaspora writers whenever I can get my hands on those kinds of books. It’s been a fun little way to diversify what I’m reading, as I’ve even found Turkic world books in Uzbek and whatnot. Elif Shafak was one of the names who came up consistently, so I decided to test the waters of her work by picking up 10 Minutes while on a trip to New York.

I did finish it before the flu took me out that trip. Let’s get into the review though! I don’t want the introduction to be too long.

We look at the life and friendships of a prostitute in her dying moments, especially after she moves to Istanbul and finds her chosen family.

The protagonist of this novel is known as Tequila Leila by her friends, but once she was just Leila. Born in a provincial Turkish town, we see how conservative her friends and family are in her stories—except one, but we’ll get to his story a bit later in the novel. First we’re set up with this scenario: Leila has just been murdered. For years she has been working as a prostitute in Istanbul—but, again, we’re going to get to that.

As her soul prepares to leave her body, she reflects on her life and the people she’s met along the way. We see how something happens to her in her girlhood that’s quite messed up, but also how men can get away with so many things and not be questioned. Her parents want to marry her off in order to deal with the shame in the town, but then Leila decides to take fate in her own hands.

She scrapes together the money to leave for Istanbul. When she arrives, she has no idea what to do, and a seemingly kind stranger offers to take her in. That kind stranger turns out to be a pimp and she becomes one of the many girls who are trafficked in the city. That sets the tone of the rest of her brief life, as she works as a prostitute almost all the way up until the end.

We see through her stories, as her soul leaves her body in those 10 minutes and 38 seconds, the people who touched her and made her life special. From her childhood friend who stayed by her side, a liberal democracy fighter that would later become her love, immigrants trying to make a life in Istanbul, or someone born differently, all of her cherished tribe in the city are seen as outcasts.

Yet, at the same time, they find solace in each other. We see how Istanbul in the twenty-first century can be a dark place for people deemed as outcasts, especially when they left behind their lives somewhere else in search for better ones. However there are so many incredible moments of joy and companionship, which is what I think this novel is really about in some ways.

While we do inhabit Leila’s world for those brief ten minutes, we do also get to see the impact she had on her friends. The second part of the novel focuses on their grief and love for her after her death, as well as the efforts they go through to put their friend at ease. Turns out in Turkey at that time when someone like Leila dies, if their family does not claim the body, then they toss it into a public graveyard with no marker or identifier. It is quite sad.

Overall Thoughts

This was my first Shafak novel, and I doubt it will be my last to be honest. I thought the premise was incredibly unique—it reminded me a lot of what we would define as a classic (however elitist that word can be when we look at its history, but I mean in its style here). Breaking up the death of a woman and the ten minutes after, as she recalls her life and what led her here, is quite brilliant to me.

I also was interested in these misfits and their found family. I did become emotionally invested in their story throughout the course of the novel, even though I did find the second part to be a bit of a slump at times. I think this is a novel that could’ve ended with Leila’s ten minutes being up, although I do appreciate seeing her friends’ efforts to give her body a proper farewell and resting place.

Regardless, this was a fun read for me to get through and then mull over in the days after finishing it. I had the flu and was knocked out for some time after work, so it was the right amount of time for me to think about this, as there was no way I was reading any other books during that time.

Go read this one if you’re interested. I think you may find it worth it!

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