The novel’s debate on the nature of God presents opposing viewpoints through the various characters: Shirin, like Peri’s father, becomes an atheist, while Peri’s roommate Mona brandishes a different kind of feminist-tinged Muslim devotion than Peri’s zealous mother, and various students at the seminar voice their opinions along with Azur. Azur inspires love, hate, and obsession among his students and colleagues, and Peri soon falls for him, eventually causing a rift between her and her friends. Peri decided to take a class with Shirin’s beloved mentor, professor Anthony Azur, who teaches a seminar about God. She thinks back to her days at Oxford when she met Shirin, a vivacious, popular student. She escapes, but when a photograph of her with her two university friends, Shirin and Mona, falls out of her purse during the struggle, it leads her to reminisce. On her way to a dinner party in the present, Peri has a violent encounter with a vagrant on the streets in Istanbul. Shafak’s ambitious novel (after The Architect’s Apprentice) follows Peri Nalbantoglu, namely her memories of childhood and a scandal in which she was involved long ago at Oxford.
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