When can one say that a person is dead? “We all think of turning ourselves into corpses at the very moment you breathe the last breath: instead the detachment is not so clear. Just as there are innumerable shades between black and raven and dazzling white, so there are various stages of this matter called “eternal rest”. It is these very last moments, only 10 minutes and 38 seconds, in which “Although the heart had stopped beating, the brain resisted, a warrior to the end: in a state of intense awareness, he observed the fading of the body but was not ready to accept one’s own “. The words are taken from the novel by Elif Shafak, a Turkish writer who lives in London, entitled “My last 10 minutes and 38 seconds in this strange world” (Italian translation Rizzoli 2019): almost the projection of an episodic film, marked by ‘time interval between the death of the heart and that of the brain.
The protagonist is Leila Tequila, the nickname is given to her in the environment of the street of the brothels in Istanbul, where she spends a large part of her existence. Born in Van, a town in eastern Turkey on the border with Armenia, Leila lands in the city of Bosporus, where she lives prostituting and where she will find death.
Shafak deals with rough subjects with a delicacy of writing, and words can fully convey feelings. No concession to the risque, nor to the pruderie.
Why this “strange world”? What is strange about our existence? The answer to these questions, which could be spontaneous for the reader, lies in the thoughts of the protagonist, who Shafak, a skilful director of the scene, seems to read in her mind: “Leila had understood that tender feelings must always be hidden, which were things to be reveal only behind closed doors and never to talk about afterwards. This was the only form of love learned by adults, and that teaching would have terrible consequences!.
The remaining time of Leila’s existence is marked by significant memories. The first is that of his coming into the world, with all the meanings, which the culture of his country attributes to this event.
The newborn baby was given to her father’s other wife to raise her. So the natural mother officially became the aunt. His brain also tastes odors from that past. The vision integrates with the sense of smell.
Since her childhood Leila had not accepted her status as a woman, born to remain submissive to her parents and family. He had experienced it when his sixty-year-old uncle, his father’s brother, abused her at six. Growing up he had a great desire to escape from the family environment. And as soon as she could, she ran away
Virgilio Iandiorio