The Architect's Apprentice

Elif Shafak can be a difficult author to categorize: one of Turkey's best-known and controversial writers and, perhaps consequently, political and social commentators, she was born in Strasbourg, spent many of her formative years outside Turkey and writes her novels in English first before reworking them in Turkish.

In addition, those familiar with her previous work may find her latest novel, The Architect's Apprentice, something of a surprise, for it is a relatively straightforward historical saga set in 16th-century Ottoman Istanbul, very different from the modern-day, multi-cultural, multi-continental and, literarily, multi-layered Bastard of Istanbul with which she made her international name. Those coming to Shafak for the first time will find in The Architect's Apprentice the elements – good storytelling, attractive characters, evocative and historically-grounded settings and personages – that appeal in writers like Amitav Ghosh.