Shafak, Elif 1971 creator text monographic ix, 367 pages ; 21 cm Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground, an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past, and a love, Peri had tried desperately to forget. The photograph takes Peri back to Oxford University, as an 18-year-old sent abroad for the first time; to her dazzling, rebellious Professor and his life- changing course on God; to her home with her two best friends, Shirin and Mona, and their arguments about Islam and femininity; and finally, to the scandal that tore them all apart. Elif Shafak. Housewives -- Fiction Female friendship Fiction Istanbul (Turkey) Fiction Oxford (England) Fiction 9780241288047 6308