Bish bash Bosphorus: Elif Shafak’s saga of love and death in Istanbul is crammed with incident on every page

The Architect’s Apprentice Elif Shafak

Viking, pp.456, £14.99

If you like to curl up by the fire with a proper, old-fashioned, saga-style tale about a boy and his elephant in Istanbul in the 1500s, The Architect’s Apprentice might be suitable for you. My heart sank slightly when the review copy arrived: a 452-page brick by an Orange-Prize-shortlisted Turkish author and ‘global speaker’ who ‘blends western and eastern methods of storytelling’ and has 1.6

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TaggedBook review - fiction, Istanbul, mosque architecture, Sinan, the Bosphorus, the Sultan’s palace

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Bish bash Bosphorus: Elif Shafak’s saga of love and death in Istanbul is crammed with incident on every page

A review of The Architect’s Apprentice by the prize-winning Turkish author promises an enthralling read from start to finish

Get 10 issues
for $10