10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

by Elif Shafak

Tequila Leila, as she was known to her friends and her clients. Tequila Leila as she was called at home and at work, in that rosewood-coloured house on a cobblestoned cul-de-sac down by the wharf, nestled between a church and a synagogue, among lamp shops and

Introducing Leila

Tequila Leila would have given anything to be in her apartment now. Instead she was here, somewhere on the outskirts of Istanbul, across from a dark, damp football field, inside a metal rubbish bin with rusty handles and flaking paint. It was a wheelie bin; at least four feet high and half as wide.

Lelia has just rrealized she has been murdered

The Istanbul that Leila had known was not the Istanbul that the Ministry of Tourism would have wanted foreigners to see.

within every sane mind there was a trace of insanity, and within the depths of madness glimmered a seed of lucidity.

Leila had come to understand that feelings of tenderness must always be hidden – that such things could only be revealed behind closed doors and never spoken about afterwards.

What a sad outlook on things

And remember, in the desert of life, the fool travels alone and the wise by caravan.’

How could meditation help you to quieten your mind when you needed to quieten your mind in order to meditate?

My thoughts exactly

There was an engraving in English on one side of the lighter: Vietnam: You Never Really Lived Until You Nearly Died.

Inscription on a Zippo lighter that belonged to Leila