“Grief is a swallow, he said. One day you wake up and you think it’s gone, but it’s only migrated to some other place, warming its feathers. Sooner or later, it will return and perch in your heart again.”
This book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019 and I am not surprised for it. The story is so moving and convincing that it brings out the best lines out of Turkish writer Elif Shafak. The story revolves around Tequila Leila, a prostitute in Istanbul, and it begins with her death. The entire story is narrated in 10 minutes and 38 seconds when she is in a state of heightened awareness and her life comes in flashbacks to her. The title refers to the amount of time the mind continues to function after the physical body dies, and so Tequila Leila uses that time to take us back through her life just as she fades out of it. The story is also about five outcast friends of Leila who are considered trash in their country. Part one of the book gives an insight about the early life of Leila in a van, her family, her mother, her aunt, and her abusive uncle who exploited her sexually. Part one of the book deals with her early life and her memories attached with each fragrance she smelled in childhood.
The story is not only about sex workers in Istanbul but their friends (untouchables, outcasts, rebels and have-nots). The best thing about Shafak is her strong female protagonists. Readers have no choice but to empathise with them or admire them, such is the brilliance with which she writes. She does not mind taboos and writes fiercely on different themes. She takes a dig at the traumas and brutalities that a woman has to face in a society that objectifies women and is defined by patriarchy. What could be more painful than Leila narrating her life’s story while lying in a dumpster? It is the story of thousands of women out there who are forced to be prostitutes, who are rape victims, who are trying hard to survive each day.
The thing that I liked the most in this novel is the apt use of words, idioms and phrases. The line that I loved most from the book is, “We must do what we can to mend our lives, we owe that to ourselves – but we need to be careful not to break others while achieving that.”

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Dr Azra Mufti