PINHAN - THE SUFI

PINHAN - THE SUFI (8th edition), which Elif Shafak published at age 27, was awarded the Rumi Prize--a recognition given to best works in mystical/transcendental literature. The novel tells the story of a hermaphrodite mystic--a little known but revered tradition--inside the Sufi orders. The body with both sexual organs is astonishingly linked to the path of the dialectics of life in the outer order. As in Shafak's other works, Pinhan explores and challenges the question of identity at the nexus of physical and metaphysical definitions.

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THE MIRRORS OF THE CITY
	The second novel, THE MIRRORS OF THE CITY (7th edition), is about the lives of conversos expelled from Spain, and especially, about one particular young Sephardic Jew -gifted with wit, fury and cynicism- who moves to 17th century Ottoman Empire. By bringing together Jewish and Islamic characters in Istanbul, the novel opens up questions on estrangement and deterritorialization.

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MAHREM (Hide-and-Seek)

Titled MAHREM (Hide-and-Seek) (8th edition), the third novel is about the interventionist gaze of the Muslim/Jalal God, of the society, as well as of the male lover. The novel traces the steps of the runaway of the female body that must search for its elusive autonomy while being encroached upon by the gazes of others. With an intricate plot and language, the novel travels from Siberia in 17th century to France in 19th century and the story finds its links back to the life of a bulimic woman and to her childhood and a sexual abuse in 1980s Turkey, Istanbul. Going through multiple printings, MAHREM received the Turkish Novel Award.

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THE FLEA PALACE

The fourth novel, THE FLEA PALACE (9th edition), published in March 2003, a humorously narrated story of an apartment building where all the characters and stories are interlaced to develop the theme of "the seen and the unseen degradation" --moral, physical, social as well as cultural-- in the heart of the aging city of Istanbul. In three months time, the book sold over 15 000 copies and for more than nine weeks it was a national best seller. The novel is translated into English and will be published by Marion Boyars in the UK and the USA in spring 2004.

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