10 minutes and 38 seconds in this strange world, by Elif Shafak

Leila, a murdered prostitute in Istanbul, finds that the moment her heart stops does not truly mark her death.  During the next ten minutes, as cells slowly shut down, she reviews her 40+ years of life.  It has been a hard one.  Born in the eastern Turkey city of Van to her father’s second wife, she is immediately passed off to his barren first wife to raise.  Her mother is “Auntie.”  This is just the first of many secrets that she and her friends have.  For although she has had a difficult life, it has not been without friends, all of whom are also outcasts in some way – an immigrant prostitute from Africa, a trans woman, a Turk born in Germany who is returned to his native country later, leaving him somewhat countryless, a dwarf…  The first two-thirds of the novel are not just about her life, but that of modern secular Turkey and particularly the ancient city of Istanbul, spanning two continents and a crossroads of history for hundreds of years.  After her final thoughts, the second half becomes a somewhat madcap escapade in which her friends rally around to rescue her from the sad Cemetery of the Companionless and give her a proper funeral.  Recommended on many levels.  311 pp.