Competing in Peri’s mind, however, are the memories invoked by her almost-lost Polaroid, of the time years earlier when she was sent abroad for the first time, to attend Oxford University. Over the course of the dinner, and amidst an opulence that is surely ill begotten, terrorist attacks occur across the city. Three Daughters of Eve is set over an evening in contemporary Istanbul, as Peri arrives at the party and navigates the tensions that simmer in this crossroads country between East and West, religious and secular, rich and poor. A relic from a past–and a love–Peri had tried desperately to forget. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground–an old Polaroid of three young women and their university professor. Growing up in Turkey, she inhabited a limbo between her mother’s defiant religion and her father’s defiant materialism, and as a result has suffered bouts of paralyzing indecision-with tragic consequences.Peri, a married, wealthy, beautiful Turkish woman, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. “Unfolding in both contemporary Istanbul and Oxford during the academic year 2001–2002, Shafak’s compelling novel examines a series of dualities-east and west, men and women, religious and secular-in order to discover a more harmonious ‘third path.’ The protagonist, Peri, embodies this quest. Pamela Klinger-Horn, Excelsior Bay Books, Excelsior, MN Winter 2018 Reading Group Indie Next List
Compelling, poignant, and highly relevant, Three Daughters of Eve is a modern exploration of identity in a changing world.”
Looking back on these years from the perspective of adulthood, Peri must confront her past before it collides with the present. As a young, unformed student, Peri felt lost in her search for faith and self. While suffering through a tedious dinner party with the international elite, she ponders her days as a student at Oxford, when her life was profoundly impacted by two friends and a charismatic professor. Peri is now a rich and glamorous woman living a comfortable life. “Elif Shafak's Three Daughters of Eve depicts a sophisticated and compelling story of modern Istanbul.
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