Dilara, the heroine of Kenan Orhan’s debut novel, is a Turkish exile living in Italy and undergoing a routine bathroom renovation that turns out to be not so routine: When the contractors leave, she steps into the refurbished space and finds herself somehow transported to an actual cell in Istanbul’s infamous Silivri Prison.
Initially dismayed, she soon grows resigned and even magnetically attracted to the cell, which offers a connection in its way to the lost homeland where her father — now dying of Alzheimer’s disease — was labeled a dissident by the ruling government. Is this strange portal a retreat or a trap, a bridge to the country she misses or a gateway for the danger she fled? And what will she sacrifice for a taste of home?
On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, host MJ Franklin discusses “The Renovation” with fellow editors Joumana Khatib and Dave Kim.
Other books mentioned in this episode:
“Man of My Time,” by Dalia Sofer
“The Spare Room,” by Helen Garner
“The Trial,” by Franz Kafka
“The Disconnected” and “Waiting for the Fear,” by Oguz Atay
“The Anthropologists,” by Aysegul Savaş
“What We Can Know,” by Ian McEwan
“Exit West,” by Mohsin Hamid
“The Memory Police,” by Yoko Ogawa
“We Do Not Part,” by Han Kang
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