 "The Bastard of Istanbul" is perhaps the first Turkish novel to deal directly with the massacres, atrocities, and deportations that decimated the country's Armenian population in the last years of Ottoman rule.Of the novel, Ariel Dorfman says, "Mixing humour and tragedy as effortlessly as her two unforgettable families blend and jumble up the many layers of their identity, Elif Shafak offers up an extravagant tale of Istanbul and Arizona, food and remorse, mysticism and tattoos, human comedy and yes, massacres.Quite an exceptional literary feast."