A TeaLamp book summary of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak (2019), written in our own words. Prepared by the TeaLamp Editorial Team with the help of AI.
This 10 Minutes 38 Seconds summary walks through one of Elif Shafak’s most loved novels, a book that begins with a death and somehow ends up being about life, memory and the friends who become our family. It is a sad story in places, and we handle it gently here. But readers often close it feeling warmer, not colder, because its real subject is love that refuses to forget.
Please note: the novel deals with violence, abuse and the hard lives of people pushed to the edge of society. We mention these themes only briefly and without detail.
Key takeaways on the 10 Minutes 38 Seconds summary
- The story opens in Istanbul in 1990. Leila, known to her friends as Tequila Leila, has just been killed, yet her mind keeps working for a short while longer.
- Each minute of that final stretch brings back a memory tied to a taste or a smell, from salt and lemon to cardamom coffee.
- Five loyal friends, all outsiders in their own way, refuse to let her be forgotten and set out to give her a proper farewell.
- The book is in three parts, called The Mind, The Body and The Soul.
- It was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize and named Blackwell’s Book of the Year in 2019.
About Elif Shafak and the book
Elif Shafak is a Turkish British novelist who writes in both English and Turkish. Her books are translated into many languages, and she is known for stories that mix the East and the West, the past and the present, and the voices of people who are rarely heard. Istanbul, the city she knows best, appears again and again in her work.
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was published in June 2019 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin, in the UK. It runs to about 311 pages. The same year it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and in 2020 it was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, which honours writing that evokes the spirit of a place.
Where the title comes from
The unusual title comes from an idea the novel opens with. Some medical reports suggest that activity in the brain may continue for a few minutes after the heart stops. Shafak imagines what might fill that brief window. For Leila, the answer is ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds of memories, arriving one after another like old photographs pulled from a drawer.
This simple idea gives the book its shape. It also changes how we see Leila. She is not a headline or a case number. She is a person with a childhood, a sense of humour, favourite foods and people she loved.
Part One: The Mind, and a life in tastes and smells
The first part moves minute by minute through Leila’s life. She was born in 1947 in Van, a city in eastern Turkey, into a strict household where much was decided for her and little was explained. Her father longed for a son, and the arrival of her baby brother, Tarkan, is marked with a feast whose spiced goat stew she still remembers. She also remembers the bubbling pots of lemon and sugar the women used while the men were at the mosque.
Her childhood holds kindness, too. Her closest friend in Van is Sinan, the son of the town’s only woman pharmacist. Yet home is not safe for her. After a painful betrayal within the family, and after the death of her beloved brother, Leila decides to leave. Sinan helps her buy a ticket, and as a teenager she takes the train west to Istanbul.
The city is not kind at first. She is robbed, then tricked by a man who pretends to help, and she ends up trapped in a brothel near the port. Shafak does not dwell on cruelty. Instead she shows how Leila keeps her dignity and her curiosity, and how small moments of warmth, a joke, a song, a shared cup of coffee, help her survive.
Leila’s memories arrive as tastes and smells, from salt and lemon to cardamom coffee. Image generated by AI.
One of those moments changes everything. Leila meets D/Ali, a gentle art student who visits her to talk and sketch rather than to take anything from her. Over cardamom coffee they fall in love, and he asks her to marry him. For a short time she has the life she once thought impossible. But D/Ali is killed in 1977 during the violence that broke out at a May Day rally in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Leila is left to rebuild her life once again.
The five friends who became her family
Along the way Leila gathers a small circle of friends. Each one has also been pushed aside by family or society, and together they form a chosen family. Shafak describes the difference between the family we are born into and the family we find for ourselves, and this book is a long, loving portrait of the second kind.
- Sabotage Sinan, her childhood friend from Van, shy and loyal, who follows her to Istanbul.
- Nostalgia Nalan, a brave and outspoken trans woman from a farming family in Anatolia, who becomes the leader of the group.
- Jameelah, a quiet young woman from Somalia, far from home and often unwell.
- Zaynab122, a devout fortune teller from Lebanon, named for her height in centimetres, who once predicted Leila would leave the brothel in a wedding dress.
- Hollywood Humeyra, a nightclub singer from Mardin who fled an unhappy marriage and who met Leila while trying to save a stray cat.
These friends are funny, stubborn and very human. They bicker, they worry, and they show up for one another again and again. Many readers say they are the true heart of the novel.
Part Two: The Body, and one long night
The second part moves from memory to action. Leila’s family does not come to claim her. Her body is taken to the Cemetery of the Companionless in Kilyos, on the Black Sea coast near Istanbul, a burial ground for people with no one to mourn them. Her grave is given only a number.
Five friends, one chosen family, keeping a light on for Leila. Image generated by AI.
Her friends cannot accept this. Led by Nalan, they make a bold and slightly absurd plan to bring Leila back and give her a farewell worthy of her. What follows is a long night journey in a borrowed old pickup truck, full of nerves, arguments, bad luck and unexpected laughter. Shafak writes these chapters with a light, almost comic touch, which makes the friends’ grief feel even more real.
Just before dawn, Zaynab122 remembers something Leila once told them: she never wanted to lie under the ground. She wanted to be free in the sea. So the friends head for the Bosphorus, the strait that runs through the heart of Istanbul, and they honour her wish there.
Part Three: The Soul
The short final part is quiet and luminous. Leila, now part of the water, drifts among fish, shells and the many stories the sea holds. Away from the labels the world gave her, she finds a kind of peace. It is an ending that feels less like a full stop and more like a deep breath.
Main themes
- Memory and the senses. The book shows how a taste or a scent can hold a whole season of life.
- Chosen family. When blood relatives turn away, friendship becomes the deepest kind of belonging.
- The forgotten. Shafak gives names, faces and inner lives to people society would rather not see.
- Istanbul itself. The city is almost a character, crowded, beautiful, contradictory and full of stories.
Who will enjoy this book
This novel suits readers who like character-driven stories, books set in a vivid city, and fiction that balances heartbreak with humour. It reads easily, with short chapters and clear language. If you prefer to avoid heavy subjects, it may help to know that the hard moments are present but are never the focus. The focus is always on Leila’s spirit and her friends’ loyalty.
Why it matters
At its core, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World asks a simple question: who deserves to be remembered? Shafak’s answer is everyone. In a world that often judges people by labels, this book gently reminds us that every life is full of small, precious details, and that a few loyal friends can make a life feel whole. It is a story to read slowly, perhaps with a glass of tea, and then to pass on to someone you love.
Related reading
If you enjoy world fiction that gives voice to a whole community, try our Things Fall Apart review, a look at Chinua Achebe’s timeless story of change.
FAQ
Is 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World a true story?
No. It is a novel, though it is set in real places, such as Istanbul and the Cemetery of the Companionless in Kilyos, and it touches on real events like the 1977 Taksim Square May Day violence.
Is it very sad?
It begins with a death and includes painful moments, but most readers find it tender and often funny. Friendship, not violence, is its main subject.
What do the three parts mean?
The Mind covers Leila’s last memories, The Body follows her friends’ night journey, and The Soul describes her peace in the sea.
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