At the breakfast table / Families Family secrets Intergenerational relations Collective memory Memory

Suman, Defne, 1974-

At the breakfast table / Defne Suman ; translated by Betsy Göksel. - 397 pages : genealogical table ; 24 cm.

Originally published in 2018 as Kahvaltı sofrası by Doğan Kitap, Istanbul, Turkey. "An Apollo Book" --Title page.

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.


Translated from the Turkish.

9781800247017 180024701X


Families--Turkey--Fiction.
Family secrets--Fiction.
Intergenerational relations--Fiction.
Collective memory--Fiction.
Memory--Fiction.


Turkey--History--20th century--Fiction.
Turkey--Social life and customs--20th century--Fiction.
Büyük Island (İstanbul İli, Turkey)--Fiction.


Historical fiction.
Novels.

894.353