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Metis Fiction
Novel
13 x 19.5 cm, 380 pp
ISBN No. 975-342-354-3
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Prints:
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1st Print: March 2002
6th Print: July 2006
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Download high resolution copy 
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About the Author
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Elif Shafak is one of the leading novelists in Turkey. Born in 1971 in Strasbourg, she received her PhD in political science. Her first novel Pinhan (The Sufi, 1997) was awarded the Mevlâna Award in 1998. She then published Şehrin Aynaları (Mirrors of the City, 1999), Mahrem (The Gaze) which won the Turkish Writers' Association Best Novel of the Year Award in 2000, Bit Palas (Flea Palace, 2002) and The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004). Her essays on gender, identity, cultural fragmentation, language and literature were collected in a volume entitled Med-Cezir (Ebb and Flow, 2005). She is a columnist for two major Turkish papers and she contributes to various European and American papers, including Berliner Zeitung, The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. She is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at University of Arizona, previously she taught at the University of Michigan. Her books have been translated into various languages, her most recent novel The Bastard of Istanbul (2007) was published by Viking Penguin in the US.
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Other Books from Metis
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Pinhan (Sufi), 1997
Şehrin Aynaları (Mirrors of the City), 1999
Mahrem (The Gaze), 2000
Araf (The Saint of Incipient Insanities), 2004
Beşpeşe, 2004
Med-Cezir (Ebb and Tide), 2005
Baba ve Piç (The Bastard of Istanbul), 2006
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Elif Shafak
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The Flea Palace
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Bit Palas
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Rights sold / published by:
Arabic: Cadmus
Dutch: De Geus
English: Marion Boyars
French: Phebus
German: Eichborn
Literary agency: Marly Rusoff & Associates
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Reviews
Excerpt
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Keen irony and humor amongst the cats and tomb thieves of Istanbul. The setting is a stately residence in Istanbul built by Russian noble émigré Pavel Antipov for his wife Agripina at the end of the Tsarist reign, now sadly dilapidated, flea-infested, and home to ten families. Shafak uses the narrative structure of A Thousand and One Nights to construct a story-within-a-story narrative. Inhabitants include Ethel, a lapsed Jew in search of true love and the sad and beautiful Blue Mistress whose personal secret provides the novel with an unforgettable denouement. Add to this a strange, intensifying stench whose cause is revealed at the end of the book, and we have a metaphor for the cultural and spiritual decay in the heart of Istanbul.
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Alev Adil, The Independent, 25 June 2004
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"The weave of disparate narratives about the residents –from Madam Auntie, the eccentric old lady in the penthouse, down to Musa the ineffectual caretaker in the basement– has a picaresque charm that blends the quotidian with a touch of magic realism."
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Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, 17 June 2005
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"Once foundations are laid, this novel takes off into a hyper-active, hilarious trip with farce, passion, mystery and many sidelights on Turkey's past. A cast of wacky flat-dwellers lend it punch and pizzazz, from Ethel the ageing Jewish diva (a wonderful creation) to Gaba, the finest fictional dog in years."
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Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller, 22 April 2005
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"…you do need to take special notice of this multi-populated, enchanting work set in dilapidated flats dominated by an over-powering stench. It is wonderful... The palace is a block of 10 flats, and this traces its history and the lives of the residents, covering a lot of ground in a fascinating text that really impressed me."
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People say I have a fanciful mind – probably the most tactful way ever invented of saying "you’re talking nonsense!" They might be right. Whenever I get anxious and mess up what I have to say, am scared of people’s stares and pretend not to be so, introduce myself to strangers and feign ignorance about how estranged I am from myself, feel hurt by the past and find it hard to admit the future won’t be any better, fail to come to terms with either where or who I am... then at yet another one of those recurring moments, I know I don’t make much sense. But nonsense is just as far removed from deception as truth. Deception turns truth inside out. As for nonsense, it solders deception and truth to each other so much so as to make them indistinguishable. Though this might seem complicated, it’s actually very simple. So simple as to be expressed by a single line...
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