"Set in Turkey, this multi-voiced, multi-layered masterwork is a bedazzlement of family secrets, hidden histories, and a breadth of fundamental human experiences."
From the author of The Silence of Scheherazade, Defne Suman’s At the Breakfast Table is an absorbing novel to savour over time. Told from four points of view, it paints vibrant portraits of a century of history as a family gather for the 100th birthday of celebrated artist, Shirin Saka.
The family have invited friend and journalist Burak to interview Shirin to mark this momentous occasion. While Shirin’s devoted servant strives to protect her, she’s compelled to unbridle decades of silent suffering that have long lain buried. Suffering related to the psychological impact of imperial outsiders fighting over her home.
With her grandchildren unaware of the secrets Shirin paints on a wall, the novel’s multi-narrative structure comes into its own as a web of intrigue. Brimming with an atmospheric sense of place, and simmering with many forms of love, At the Breakfast Table is a haunting novel of the highest order.
Told from four different perspectives, At the Breakfast Table is a story of hidden histories and family secrets, from the author of The Silence of Scheherazade. Buyukada, Turkey, 2017. In the glow of a late summer morning, family gather for the 100th birthday of the famous artist Shirin Saka. It ought to be a time of fond reminiscence, looking back on a long and fruitful artistic career, on memories spanning almost a century. But the deep past is something Shirin has spent a lifetime trying to conceal. Her grandchildren, Nur and Fikret, and great-grandchild, Celine, do not know what she's hiding, though they are intimately aware of the secret's psychological consequences. The siblings invite family friend and investigative journalist Burak along to interview Shirin – in celebration of her centenary, and also in the hope of persuading her to open up. Eventually Shirin begins to express her pain the only way she knows how. She paints a story onto her dining room wall, revealing a history wiped from public consciousness and generations of her family's history. 'Fiercely intelligent, finely textured and achingly beautiful.' Elif Shafak
