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The Renovation
A woman discovers that her bathroom has been remodeled into a prison cell—where she is an unlikely inmate—in this surreal novel of exile, grief, memory, and migration.
In Salerno, Italy, Dilara spends her days caring for her aging father and her hypochondriac husband. Since leaving her native Istanbul, she’s been unable to find a job—adrift, she becomes increasingly fixated on domestic improvement, specifically on the renovation of a second bathroom. When the work is completed, she enters and finds herself not in a bathroom but in a prison cell, and a Turkish one at that.
As she tries and fails to conceal the unfortunate discovery from her husband, she confronts the prison’s other inhabitants—the buffoonish guards who refuse to believe her conundrum; the other women who begin filling the cells beyond hers—and the strange things that drift through the smell of the Bosporus, her mother’s voice, calls to prayer . . .
Has she gone mad? Is she the victim of a terrible prank? Is it a portal, a dream, a simulation? As she burrows deeper into her cell, her life beyond it begins to fall apart—her husband disappears, her father’s grip on reality loosens, political dictatorship threatens to destroy everything worth keeping.
In his slender, disquieting first novel, Kenan Orhan tells a story of modern migration like no other. The Renovation is a tragic comedy of displacement, a story that remodels its own form to the dazzling inevitable end.
In Salerno, Italy, Dilara spends her days caring for her aging father and her hypochondriac husband. Since leaving her native Istanbul, she’s been unable to find a job—adrift, she becomes increasingly fixated on domestic improvement, specifically on the renovation of a second bathroom. When the work is completed, she enters and finds herself not in a bathroom but in a prison cell, and a Turkish one at that.
As she tries and fails to conceal the unfortunate discovery from her husband, she confronts the prison’s other inhabitants—the buffoonish guards who refuse to believe her conundrum; the other women who begin filling the cells beyond hers—and the strange things that drift through the smell of the Bosporus, her mother’s voice, calls to prayer . . .
Has she gone mad? Is she the victim of a terrible prank? Is it a portal, a dream, a simulation? As she burrows deeper into her cell, her life beyond it begins to fall apart—her husband disappears, her father’s grip on reality loosens, political dictatorship threatens to destroy everything worth keeping.
In his slender, disquieting first novel, Kenan Orhan tells a story of modern migration like no other. The Renovation is a tragic comedy of displacement, a story that remodels its own form to the dazzling inevitable end.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published March 26, 2026
About the author
Kenan Orhan
6 books76 followersKenan Orhan is a Turkish American writer and a recipient of the O. Henry Prize. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review, Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, The Common, and elsewhere, and have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories. Orhan received his MFA from Emerson College and lives in Kansas City. I Am My Country is his first book.
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August 8, 2026
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize
In a world where migration remains one of the most important topics, this novel refuses to be distracted by the noise and presents a thoughtful representation of the mental dilemmas of a life in exile.
"Exile is an abusive relationship, and even when you leave, when you pack up your duffel bag, and take off into the long, long sea hoping to resurface in some shining world without pain, and instead end up in a place with its own harms and passions and joys and tortures (that is everywhere), and you set up a life again, safeguarded this time, put into a special box, your homeland reaches out a cruel hand and injures you again, even here, even in your haven, because what people don't mention about exile is the hostages it creates."
The Renovation opens with a woman discovering that her new bathroom was remodeled into a Turkish prison cell. The bathroom is in Salerno, Italy; the prison cell is in Istanbul, and that's where the magical realism stops. This is one of those rare examples when the idea isn't just a gimmick, but an innovative representation of exactly what the novel is about.
After Dilara, our protagonist, gets past the unusualness of this new situation (some of it because of financial reasons, as she can't afford another renovation), she gets to reflect on what this magical event really means. We learn the history of her family, the realities of living under the Erdogan regime, why she left the country in which she was born, and how she adapted to the new country that accepted her family.
"As we learn a new language, it explained, we become a different person. As we access different linguistic structures, our personalities shift, to reflect the different concepts available to us through different words, but also because of the new company we keep in a new language, and because of our preconceived notions about the language, all these things alter who we become under it."
How much of our problems in the world come from the inability of people to put themselves in someone else's shoes? If literature can make a difference, this is the kind of book that makes you understand how different a life can be because you were born in another country, how easy or hard it is to adapt to new environments, how much you become someone else, and how much you can't forget who you really are deep down.
"When had it last struck me that I should miss Turkey?"
This is also a political novel done right. The portal offers not only a way for Dilara to remember her personal history, but also serves to tell us about the abuses from the state that caused her exile and the feeling of guilt for all the people left behind. The inability of democratic forces to combat authoritarian regimes in a world that can no longer censor words and information is part of the same loss of empathy for the other. That's why history repeats itself.
I don't know how much noise a reflective novel like this can make to combat the problems in the world, but understanding a problem is a mandatory step in finding the solution.
In a world where migration remains one of the most important topics, this novel refuses to be distracted by the noise and presents a thoughtful representation of the mental dilemmas of a life in exile.
"Exile is an abusive relationship, and even when you leave, when you pack up your duffel bag, and take off into the long, long sea hoping to resurface in some shining world without pain, and instead end up in a place with its own harms and passions and joys and tortures (that is everywhere), and you set up a life again, safeguarded this time, put into a special box, your homeland reaches out a cruel hand and injures you again, even here, even in your haven, because what people don't mention about exile is the hostages it creates."
The Renovation opens with a woman discovering that her new bathroom was remodeled into a Turkish prison cell. The bathroom is in Salerno, Italy; the prison cell is in Istanbul, and that's where the magical realism stops. This is one of those rare examples when the idea isn't just a gimmick, but an innovative representation of exactly what the novel is about.
After Dilara, our protagonist, gets past the unusualness of this new situation (some of it because of financial reasons, as she can't afford another renovation), she gets to reflect on what this magical event really means. We learn the history of her family, the realities of living under the Erdogan regime, why she left the country in which she was born, and how she adapted to the new country that accepted her family.
"As we learn a new language, it explained, we become a different person. As we access different linguistic structures, our personalities shift, to reflect the different concepts available to us through different words, but also because of the new company we keep in a new language, and because of our preconceived notions about the language, all these things alter who we become under it."
How much of our problems in the world come from the inability of people to put themselves in someone else's shoes? If literature can make a difference, this is the kind of book that makes you understand how different a life can be because you were born in another country, how easy or hard it is to adapt to new environments, how much you become someone else, and how much you can't forget who you really are deep down.
"When had it last struck me that I should miss Turkey?"
This is also a political novel done right. The portal offers not only a way for Dilara to remember her personal history, but also serves to tell us about the abuses from the state that caused her exile and the feeling of guilt for all the people left behind. The inability of democratic forces to combat authoritarian regimes in a world that can no longer censor words and information is part of the same loss of empathy for the other. That's why history repeats itself.
I don't know how much noise a reflective novel like this can make to combat the problems in the world, but understanding a problem is a mandatory step in finding the solution.
May 8, 2026
This unusual variation on a portal fantasy is narrated by Dilara who left Turkey with her husband and father for a small Italian village. The move was prompted by her father being cast as a political dissident, a label which also cost Dilara her job. Unable to find work in Italy, Dilara’s stuck at home facing the prospect of looking after her father who has a form of Alzheimer’s that’s rapidly progressing. Now that her father’s set to move into her apartment more space is needed. But when the required building work’s completed, instead of opening onto an extra bathroom, her bedroom’s directly connected to a prison cell in Turkey’s maximum security Siliviri Prison (now Marmara Prison). The revelation startles Dilara’s husband so much, he immediately flees but Dilara’s curiously accepting of this bizarre development. In time she even comes to embrace it, providing as it does, a route back into a motherland and a culture she desperately misses.
Although there are passages of frenetic prose, Kenan Orhan’s narrative is dense and largely matter of fact. The fantasy element is little more than a device, a means of enabling an exploration of broader issues around nostalgia, memory, confinement and repression. These are split between Dilara’s everyday isolation and exhaustion caring for a parent who no longer even recognises her, and an overview of shifts in Turkish society as Erdoğan’s grip tightened. As her father’s memory falters, Dilara’s more and more caught up in recollections of her recent past. These offer up perspectives on Turkey particularly the impact of creeping authoritarianism: from the uprisings in Gezi Park to the 2016 coup attempt.
Dilara finds herself increasingly drawn to the cell, relishing hearing her own language, as well as smells and sounds that remind her of what’s lost. It becomes an unlikely refuge and even a source of community, forged from mingling with other women in her cell block. The women’s stories also provide insights into Turkey since Dilara left: the summary imprisonment of journalists and rights activists, the long stretches of pre-trial incarceration used to subdue opposition. Dilara’s gradual adjustment to possible imprisonment indirectly comments on those who tolerate life under dictatorial regimes. Those who elect to remain silent rather than risk becoming outcasts like Dilara and her family. Taken together, Dilara’s experiences form an arresting meditation on identity, the nature of exile, and what cannot easily be left behind. They’re also a poignant reminder of what it is to be a full-time carer; a role so often, so casually assigned to women, imprisoning them in domestic spaces, rendering them close to invisible. Admittedly the symbolism - and the storytelling in general - leans towards heavy-handed but overall a moving, illuminating piece.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
Although there are passages of frenetic prose, Kenan Orhan’s narrative is dense and largely matter of fact. The fantasy element is little more than a device, a means of enabling an exploration of broader issues around nostalgia, memory, confinement and repression. These are split between Dilara’s everyday isolation and exhaustion caring for a parent who no longer even recognises her, and an overview of shifts in Turkish society as Erdoğan’s grip tightened. As her father’s memory falters, Dilara’s more and more caught up in recollections of her recent past. These offer up perspectives on Turkey particularly the impact of creeping authoritarianism: from the uprisings in Gezi Park to the 2016 coup attempt.
Dilara finds herself increasingly drawn to the cell, relishing hearing her own language, as well as smells and sounds that remind her of what’s lost. It becomes an unlikely refuge and even a source of community, forged from mingling with other women in her cell block. The women’s stories also provide insights into Turkey since Dilara left: the summary imprisonment of journalists and rights activists, the long stretches of pre-trial incarceration used to subdue opposition. Dilara’s gradual adjustment to possible imprisonment indirectly comments on those who tolerate life under dictatorial regimes. Those who elect to remain silent rather than risk becoming outcasts like Dilara and her family. Taken together, Dilara’s experiences form an arresting meditation on identity, the nature of exile, and what cannot easily be left behind. They’re also a poignant reminder of what it is to be a full-time carer; a role so often, so casually assigned to women, imprisoning them in domestic spaces, rendering them close to invisible. Admittedly the symbolism - and the storytelling in general - leans towards heavy-handed but overall a moving, illuminating piece.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hamish Hamilton for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
August 26, 2026
Booker long listed 2026!
Hope is a symptom of the strangeness of life. Who was I to say what is and isn't possible while I hid in a prison in my bathroom?"
"When there is something missing from you, how do you fill the space? Do you describe the boundary of the void obsessively, or simply cover its shapelessness with a veil?"
Is it too early to identify a Booker nominee for 2026?
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan is a book that requires attention.
Dilara with her husband and father are exiles. They have moved to a village near Salerno in Italy to escape the persecution of her father in Turkey- an outspoken opponent of the Erdogan administration. Leaving behind the control of a government and the rise of political prisoners. However, life changes when the request for a new bathroom is turned upside down when the builders install a Turkish prison cell. and Dilara's father life changes as the shadow of Alzheimers deepens and he closes in on himself.
Dilara finds herself bewitched by this room - she hears the voices of female prisoners, the orders of guards and the aromas of a past life. She is drawn to the cell as a place of escape.
The metaphorical comparison of living in a new country with no friends to feeling imprisoned is evident; the decline of her father as his world closes down and he withdraws into his own solitary existence( a personal cell); the continual fear of persecution and potential repercussions echo through Dilara's mind especially as she reflects upon the turmoil caused in their lives in Turkey and subsequent "escape". as well as the isolation of being away from family and a past life. Dilara finds solace in a cell.
This is a story of millions fleeing wars, political conflicts and regimes and the internal struggles and the cells that people find themselves living within longing to be free in their homelands.
Powerful, haunting, captivating - a book that will leave you unsettled but equally makes us reflect upon the harsh realities of life.
Hope is a symptom of the strangeness of life. Who was I to say what is and isn't possible while I hid in a prison in my bathroom?"
"When there is something missing from you, how do you fill the space? Do you describe the boundary of the void obsessively, or simply cover its shapelessness with a veil?"
Is it too early to identify a Booker nominee for 2026?
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan is a book that requires attention.
Dilara with her husband and father are exiles. They have moved to a village near Salerno in Italy to escape the persecution of her father in Turkey- an outspoken opponent of the Erdogan administration. Leaving behind the control of a government and the rise of political prisoners. However, life changes when the request for a new bathroom is turned upside down when the builders install a Turkish prison cell. and Dilara's father life changes as the shadow of Alzheimers deepens and he closes in on himself.
Dilara finds herself bewitched by this room - she hears the voices of female prisoners, the orders of guards and the aromas of a past life. She is drawn to the cell as a place of escape.
The metaphorical comparison of living in a new country with no friends to feeling imprisoned is evident; the decline of her father as his world closes down and he withdraws into his own solitary existence( a personal cell); the continual fear of persecution and potential repercussions echo through Dilara's mind especially as she reflects upon the turmoil caused in their lives in Turkey and subsequent "escape". as well as the isolation of being away from family and a past life. Dilara finds solace in a cell.
This is a story of millions fleeing wars, political conflicts and regimes and the internal struggles and the cells that people find themselves living within longing to be free in their homelands.
Powerful, haunting, captivating - a book that will leave you unsettled but equally makes us reflect upon the harsh realities of life.
August 8, 2026
Kenan Orhan’s The Renovation (2026) has a fascinating premise. My curiosity was piqued by the blurb, and I went in feeling intrigued and excited, expecting a Kafkaesque, surreal novel.
The book follows Delara, a Turkish immigrant living in Italy. Although she is a child psychologist by profession, she no longer practises. Instead, her life is consumed by caring for her father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. The novel is firmly grounded in extensive, often harrowing detail about Turkey’s political regime. While I knew the situation there was serious, I hadn’t fully grasped just how grave it was. The surreal element enters through the bathroom of Delara and her husband’s apartment: suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, it mysteriously transforms into a women’s prison.
The background on Turkey’s political landscape was deeply enlightening. I feel immense sympathy for all those Turkish people who have been forced to flee a country that has brutally persecuted anyone critical of the regime, or with too many degrees, or who spoke Kurdish or Arabic, or was a communist, or was trans or homosexual or an unmarried woman, or childless: anyone who undermined the state by breathing, beating, living. I respect Kenan Orhan’s commitment to bearing witness to these innocent victims. Unfortunately, I often found these passages dealing with political content overwhelming. At times, they read more like newspaper reportage than fiction. Had learning about Turkey’s political system been my main reason for picking up the book, I might have been satisfied, but the stark contrast between the documentary realism and the surrealist elements often felt jarring.
The prison metaphor is effective, but rather heavy-handed. It seems to represent the subjugation of women, the oppressive political regime, the broader human condition, and even the oppressive nature of caregiving itself. I felt deeply sorry for Delara—both for the trauma she has endured and for her present circumstances—but her self-pity was sometimes difficult to take. I deserved better than a dying father, an absent husband, a squandered country. I am human, and so I deserve. This quote practically serves as her motto. The reasons for her bitterness are clearly stated, but that doesn't change the fact that I found her cold and distant.
Where the novel truly shines, however, is in its portrayal of exile, uprooting and homesickness. These nostalgic fragments are moving and painfully evocative, for example: Those seven years now heavy as the midday sun would fall away, collapsing us into each other, collapsing me into all the missed moments. I could already taste the lamb kofte from my favourite little kebab shop, the sticky lokma I would buy from the old confectioner’s in Bebek. The rip of engines would jump down alleys, their diesel wakes lingering in the nose. Cats would come out onto the balconies and mew welcomes until the fog and the rain came in sliding panes over the city, and little slugs would crawl out onto the apartment steps each night to sing their sluggy songs.
As my first dip into this year’s Booker longlist, The Renovation leaves me torn. I genuinely admire the beauty and ambition of Orhan’s debut, and I have a great deal of respect for what he is trying to accomplish. But ultimately, the novel left me more frustrated than moved.
The book follows Delara, a Turkish immigrant living in Italy. Although she is a child psychologist by profession, she no longer practises. Instead, her life is consumed by caring for her father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s. The novel is firmly grounded in extensive, often harrowing detail about Turkey’s political regime. While I knew the situation there was serious, I hadn’t fully grasped just how grave it was. The surreal element enters through the bathroom of Delara and her husband’s apartment: suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, it mysteriously transforms into a women’s prison.
The background on Turkey’s political landscape was deeply enlightening. I feel immense sympathy for all those Turkish people who have been forced to flee a country that has brutally persecuted anyone critical of the regime, or with too many degrees, or who spoke Kurdish or Arabic, or was a communist, or was trans or homosexual or an unmarried woman, or childless: anyone who undermined the state by breathing, beating, living. I respect Kenan Orhan’s commitment to bearing witness to these innocent victims. Unfortunately, I often found these passages dealing with political content overwhelming. At times, they read more like newspaper reportage than fiction. Had learning about Turkey’s political system been my main reason for picking up the book, I might have been satisfied, but the stark contrast between the documentary realism and the surrealist elements often felt jarring.
The prison metaphor is effective, but rather heavy-handed. It seems to represent the subjugation of women, the oppressive political regime, the broader human condition, and even the oppressive nature of caregiving itself. I felt deeply sorry for Delara—both for the trauma she has endured and for her present circumstances—but her self-pity was sometimes difficult to take. I deserved better than a dying father, an absent husband, a squandered country. I am human, and so I deserve. This quote practically serves as her motto. The reasons for her bitterness are clearly stated, but that doesn't change the fact that I found her cold and distant.
Where the novel truly shines, however, is in its portrayal of exile, uprooting and homesickness. These nostalgic fragments are moving and painfully evocative, for example: Those seven years now heavy as the midday sun would fall away, collapsing us into each other, collapsing me into all the missed moments. I could already taste the lamb kofte from my favourite little kebab shop, the sticky lokma I would buy from the old confectioner’s in Bebek. The rip of engines would jump down alleys, their diesel wakes lingering in the nose. Cats would come out onto the balconies and mew welcomes until the fog and the rain came in sliding panes over the city, and little slugs would crawl out onto the apartment steps each night to sing their sluggy songs.
As my first dip into this year’s Booker longlist, The Renovation leaves me torn. I genuinely admire the beauty and ambition of Orhan’s debut, and I have a great deal of respect for what he is trying to accomplish. But ultimately, the novel left me more frustrated than moved.
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August 6, 2026Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize
A surreal examination of memory, national identity, and caregiving. Kenan Orhan's debut novel ties together the threads of fable-like tale with the intense history of Turkey and the ways in which we never truly leave our homelands--or how they never leave us.
Dilara looks after her father who has dementia. While making room for him in the Italian apartment she shares with her husband, a renovation goes awry leaving them not with an extra bathroom but with a Turkish prison cell instead. This intrusion in their lives sends her husband skittering off and Dilara left to pick up the pieces: struggling to make ends meet, care for her father, and reckon with the memories of their homeland they were forced out of.
I didn't expect this book to have such humorous moments, at times. The ridiculousness of the situation is laughable, but then immediately grounded by the sobering reality they have and continue to live through. Dilara is a dry and witty narrator who comes to life through a complexly rendered characterization--as daughter, mother-figure (though she's not a mother herself), and immigrant.
So many parallels in this story, depicting the slow decline into authoritarianism and the political precariousness of her homeland will resonate with readers, especially those of us in the U.S. It's a compelling, page-turning story that also gets to the heart of national remembrance, the disastrous effects of forgetting, and the pain of hope.
A surreal examination of memory, national identity, and caregiving. Kenan Orhan's debut novel ties together the threads of fable-like tale with the intense history of Turkey and the ways in which we never truly leave our homelands--or how they never leave us.
Dilara looks after her father who has dementia. While making room for him in the Italian apartment she shares with her husband, a renovation goes awry leaving them not with an extra bathroom but with a Turkish prison cell instead. This intrusion in their lives sends her husband skittering off and Dilara left to pick up the pieces: struggling to make ends meet, care for her father, and reckon with the memories of their homeland they were forced out of.
I didn't expect this book to have such humorous moments, at times. The ridiculousness of the situation is laughable, but then immediately grounded by the sobering reality they have and continue to live through. Dilara is a dry and witty narrator who comes to life through a complexly rendered characterization--as daughter, mother-figure (though she's not a mother herself), and immigrant.
So many parallels in this story, depicting the slow decline into authoritarianism and the political precariousness of her homeland will resonate with readers, especially those of us in the U.S. It's a compelling, page-turning story that also gets to the heart of national remembrance, the disastrous effects of forgetting, and the pain of hope.
August 20, 2026
Booker’a son yıllarda biraz mesafeli olsam da rahatlıkla söyleyebilirim ki The Renovation, listenin hakkını veren kitaplardan. Dahası, Kenan Orhan’ın ilk romanı olduğunu düşününce beklentileri tatmin eden bir metin bence. Ev, göç, tutsaklık ve hafıza gibi daha önce defalarca okuduğumuz meseleleri kuvvetli bir metafor üstünden anlatıyor; İtalya’daki bir evin banyosuyla Silivri’deki bir hücre arasındaki sınırın giderek ortadan kalkması, memleketten gitmekle memleketten kurtulmanın aynı şey olmadığını anlatmak için hayli güçlü bir fikir. Özellikle hafızayı hem insanı eve bağlayan hem de tutsak eden bir şey olarak ele alışını sevdim. Yer yer fazla politik bilgi verdiğini, bu bilginin hikayenin önüne geçtiğini ve ne yazık ki sadece Batılı okura seslendiğini düşünüyorum. Bu da özellikle Türkiyeli okur için tatsız. Aynı şekilde karakterlere dair veri de çok az, bu da hem bağ kurmayı hem de siyaseten nerede durduklarına dair karakterleri konumlandırmayı zorlaştırıyor ama ilk romanlarda bunun gibi kusurlar olması da çok olağan bir yandan. Romanın da siyaseten durduğu yeri ve karakterlerine bakışını ayrıca tartışmak mümkün ama orada da kolayca niyet okumaya düşülebilir; o yüzden o topa hiç girmiyorum.
August 18, 2026
Those of you who know me as a reader already know magical realism isn't my favorite. However, here it's done well. A flawed bathroom remodel in an Italian apartment turns out to be a prison cell in a Turkish prison. Reading the prison cell as a metaphor worked for me.
The protagonist, Dilara is trapped. She is exiled in Italy. Trapped by her need to care for an aging demented father. Trapped by her financial circumstance after her husband leaves her. So, the fact that she seems to find refuge in a prison cell (what's more trapped than that?) seems both ironic and apropos.
So hat's off to Orhan for beautiful writing and a clever premise. I also really appreciate the education on the circumstances in Turkey, a place I knew little about, but now which I am very curious to learn more about.
Unfortunately, this book was marred for me by a couple of things. The latter half of it seems unfocused and also gets a little dull. After a promising start, the book never again really gains momentum from a plot standpoint. Worse, I actually didn't think the main character was that well developed. I'm not sure how it is possible, but my empathy for her was limited. Somehow, I really didn't feel anything about her and her predicaments. The stakes didn't seem to raise to the height the words on the page suggested.
For the first half, I was thinking 5 star and number 1 in my Booker rankings . . .and by the end, I was like, alas, no.
The protagonist, Dilara is trapped. She is exiled in Italy. Trapped by her need to care for an aging demented father. Trapped by her financial circumstance after her husband leaves her. So, the fact that she seems to find refuge in a prison cell (what's more trapped than that?) seems both ironic and apropos.
So hat's off to Orhan for beautiful writing and a clever premise. I also really appreciate the education on the circumstances in Turkey, a place I knew little about, but now which I am very curious to learn more about.
Unfortunately, this book was marred for me by a couple of things. The latter half of it seems unfocused and also gets a little dull. After a promising start, the book never again really gains momentum from a plot standpoint. Worse, I actually didn't think the main character was that well developed. I'm not sure how it is possible, but my empathy for her was limited. Somehow, I really didn't feel anything about her and her predicaments. The stakes didn't seem to raise to the height the words on the page suggested.
For the first half, I was thinking 5 star and number 1 in my Booker rankings . . .and by the end, I was like, alas, no.
August 13, 2026
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026
An interesting book which deserves its place on the longlist and may well make the shortlist. The main protagonist Dilara has emigrated with her husband and her father from Istanbul to Italy. The father has Alzheimers, and coupled with the exile theme this makes the nature of memory central to the story. The author has said that this book grew out of a short story, and the surreal plot device at its centre, that a botched building job has created a portal directly from the house in Italy to a prison cell in Istanbul, is a striking one which perhaps leavens the darker and more involved political subtext of the story. Orhan's handling of the central relationships is impressive, but the later parts of the book seemed a little directionless. I would certainly recommend reading it.
An interesting book which deserves its place on the longlist and may well make the shortlist. The main protagonist Dilara has emigrated with her husband and her father from Istanbul to Italy. The father has Alzheimers, and coupled with the exile theme this makes the nature of memory central to the story. The author has said that this book grew out of a short story, and the surreal plot device at its centre, that a botched building job has created a portal directly from the house in Italy to a prison cell in Istanbul, is a striking one which perhaps leavens the darker and more involved political subtext of the story. Orhan's handling of the central relationships is impressive, but the later parts of the book seemed a little directionless. I would certainly recommend reading it.
August 1, 2026
Dilara is shocked to find that the construction crew she hired to remodel her bathroom have instead opened a portal into a Turkish prison cell. She is upset at first, but she comes to find that the cell connects her to her homeland and offers a respite from the pressures of her life: a phobic husband, an aging father slipping into Alzheimer's, and the struggle to build a meaningful life in Italy. The family had left Türkiye after her father was nearly killed and she was fired for her political connections. The fear of arrest was real.
I have been reading through the Booker Longlist, and I have finally found a book with substance. It is beautifully written, evoking the atmosphere of an Istanbul of former days. Through the prison portal, Dilara relates the story of Türkiye's transformation under Erdoğan's regime into an authoritarian state, and she does it entirely through her family's personal experience. I became fully immersed. The words flowed and time disappeared.
Magical realism is not usually my preference, but it works beautifully here to portray the toll of migration: the longing for one's homeland and the difficulty of being accepted in a new country. It is also an ode to caretakers, to the hardships of watching a loved one decline, here from Alzheimer's. The prison cell becomes a perfect metaphor for both halves of Dilara's life, caregiver and political exile, the place where the country she fled and the life she is trying to build come together.
The book addresses subjects that feel urgent right now. It offers insight into the contemporary situation in Türkiye, where people are arrested and brutalized and the names of institutions and organizations are changed to erase collective memory. It happened there, and it is not hard to extrapolate to circumstances elsewhere, including the US. I encourage everyone to read it. It is brilliant.
I have been reading through the Booker Longlist, and I have finally found a book with substance. It is beautifully written, evoking the atmosphere of an Istanbul of former days. Through the prison portal, Dilara relates the story of Türkiye's transformation under Erdoğan's regime into an authoritarian state, and she does it entirely through her family's personal experience. I became fully immersed. The words flowed and time disappeared.
Magical realism is not usually my preference, but it works beautifully here to portray the toll of migration: the longing for one's homeland and the difficulty of being accepted in a new country. It is also an ode to caretakers, to the hardships of watching a loved one decline, here from Alzheimer's. The prison cell becomes a perfect metaphor for both halves of Dilara's life, caregiver and political exile, the place where the country she fled and the life she is trying to build come together.
The book addresses subjects that feel urgent right now. It offers insight into the contemporary situation in Türkiye, where people are arrested and brutalized and the names of institutions and organizations are changed to erase collective memory. It happened there, and it is not hard to extrapolate to circumstances elsewhere, including the US. I encourage everyone to read it. It is brilliant.
August 8, 2026
3.5, rounded down
August 28, 2026
Booker Longlist #12
Oddly enough, I finished this the same day my contractor finished renovating my own bathroom! Luckily, mine turned out a lot better than the one in this novel.
My main issue with this is that I have little to no interest in the history of Turkey and Erdogan's regime and this veered quite a bit into didactic territory for my taste. Reminded me a LOT of '22's shortlisted Glory in taking a satirical/magical realist slant to tell the heathen the story of the author's country's plight.
For a first novel, it wasn't bad, and it was short enough - and simplistic enough - for me to breeze through in two days, but just not my cuppa - and the basic premise was kind of a one-trick pony.
Oddly enough, I finished this the same day my contractor finished renovating my own bathroom! Luckily, mine turned out a lot better than the one in this novel.
My main issue with this is that I have little to no interest in the history of Turkey and Erdogan's regime and this veered quite a bit into didactic territory for my taste. Reminded me a LOT of '22's shortlisted Glory in taking a satirical/magical realist slant to tell the heathen the story of the author's country's plight.
For a first novel, it wasn't bad, and it was short enough - and simplistic enough - for me to breeze through in two days, but just not my cuppa - and the basic premise was kind of a one-trick pony.
August 6, 2026
Another book I just read from the 2026 Booker longlist, RENOVATION is certainly different and confusing!
The novel appears to have grown from a short story to this length and as is usually the case, I think it may have been better to leave it short. Dilara the female narrator is facing several problematic issues in her life. After having fled Turkey for Italy years ago, she is most of all still suffering from the exile experience .The main problem seems to be that her bathroom renovation has somehow turned out to be a copy of a prison cell. This fact affects all the rest of the book and interactions with both her husband and father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. I think it is perhaps a bit too experimental to be chosen for the Booker short list but if it was, I would welcome the chance to read it again and hear more about what other readers think of it! 3*
The novel appears to have grown from a short story to this length and as is usually the case, I think it may have been better to leave it short. Dilara the female narrator is facing several problematic issues in her life. After having fled Turkey for Italy years ago, she is most of all still suffering from the exile experience .The main problem seems to be that her bathroom renovation has somehow turned out to be a copy of a prison cell. This fact affects all the rest of the book and interactions with both her husband and father, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. I think it is perhaps a bit too experimental to be chosen for the Booker short list but if it was, I would welcome the chance to read it again and hear more about what other readers think of it! 3*
August 28, 2026
Bumping this to 5 stars because I seem to be judging books partly by their afterlife, and somehow I am still in that strange cell...
“All of the city was in there with me—all of the country. It swirled in a great and terrible form, as if everything I had ever loved and feared had been scooped out of me and thrown into a kaleidoscope.”
“All of the city was in there with me—all of the country. It swirled in a great and terrible form, as if everything I had ever loved and feared had been scooped out of me and thrown into a kaleidoscope.”
August 6, 2025
4.5 stars
With its fantastical premise and candidly raw emotional core, The Renovation is a powerful literary gem. I’m glad I was drawn in by its outlandish hook—a botched renovation where a residential bathroom inexplicably transforms into a prison cell—judging on the subject matter alone, I might have passed it by as too literary for my taste. The touch of magical realism is seamlessly woven throughout, holding my attention and pulling me into a vulnerable, deeply human character study. More than once, I found myself double-checking to make sure this wasn’t a nonfiction memoir—the protagonist’s journey feels that vivid and real.
The Renovation tackles heavy themes: a parent’s dementia and Türkiye’s political turmoil over the past decade. Despite this, it never feels overwrought; instead, it’s resonant and surprisingly balanced. For someone who doesn’t regularly engage with Türkiye’s politics, it’s also insightful without being overly academic. As an immigrant myself, I found the depiction of complicated feelings toward one’s homeland strikingly accurate—on the surface, countless reasons to leave, yet underneath, an unbreakable emotional longing. Oddly enough, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner kept coming to mind while I was reading this—likely because of its reflective portrayal of a parent–child relationship.
Ultimately, The Renovation was a refreshing change of pace from my usual thriller and horror reads: more introspective and serious, yet still delightfully quirky thanks to its unconventional setup and fluid, unpretentious writing style. There’s so much metaphor and symbolism to unpack that I know this story will stick with me for a long time.
**This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated!**
With its fantastical premise and candidly raw emotional core, The Renovation is a powerful literary gem. I’m glad I was drawn in by its outlandish hook—a botched renovation where a residential bathroom inexplicably transforms into a prison cell—judging on the subject matter alone, I might have passed it by as too literary for my taste. The touch of magical realism is seamlessly woven throughout, holding my attention and pulling me into a vulnerable, deeply human character study. More than once, I found myself double-checking to make sure this wasn’t a nonfiction memoir—the protagonist’s journey feels that vivid and real.
The Renovation tackles heavy themes: a parent’s dementia and Türkiye’s political turmoil over the past decade. Despite this, it never feels overwrought; instead, it’s resonant and surprisingly balanced. For someone who doesn’t regularly engage with Türkiye’s politics, it’s also insightful without being overly academic. As an immigrant myself, I found the depiction of complicated feelings toward one’s homeland strikingly accurate—on the surface, countless reasons to leave, yet underneath, an unbreakable emotional longing. Oddly enough, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner kept coming to mind while I was reading this—likely because of its reflective portrayal of a parent–child relationship.
Ultimately, The Renovation was a refreshing change of pace from my usual thriller and horror reads: more introspective and serious, yet still delightfully quirky thanks to its unconventional setup and fluid, unpretentious writing style. There’s so much metaphor and symbolism to unpack that I know this story will stick with me for a long time.
**This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated!**
March 13, 2026
This book has a very promising premise. I was expecting a story that would really make me question things like: "What's happening?" But well … sadly, it did not meet my expectations. I hoped the magical realism element would feel stronger, and the prison cell would be explored much deeper, with more mystery around it. Instead, I felt the story focused more on other things, and the prison cell became less important than I expected. I also didn't relate to the characters or feel the metaphor the author was trying to deliver. In the end, this book is just not for me. But it might be for you.
August 23, 2026
Booker Longlist Read #5
I went into this one with high expectations, as the combination of magical realism and very real issues like dementia and exile sounded like exactly the kind of story I usually adore.
There was a lot that was beautifully done. I especially connected with the sadness, anger and helplessness of losing someone close to you to dementia, or, as the author so beautifully puts it, "...to watch someone dissolve beneath their own skin."
I also loved the way she captured the complicated emotions of exile — how even speaking a different language can make you feel like a different person, and how you can be grateful to have escaped and be safe, yet still desperately long to go home.
Unfortunately, the prison element didn't work nearly as well for me. I think I understand the symbolism behind it — feeling imprisoned by caring for her father and by her longing for Turkey — but it still felt like the weakest part of the novel.
Beautiful writing and some incredibly moving observations, but the central metaphor never quite connected with me.
I went into this one with high expectations, as the combination of magical realism and very real issues like dementia and exile sounded like exactly the kind of story I usually adore.
There was a lot that was beautifully done. I especially connected with the sadness, anger and helplessness of losing someone close to you to dementia, or, as the author so beautifully puts it, "...to watch someone dissolve beneath their own skin."
I also loved the way she captured the complicated emotions of exile — how even speaking a different language can make you feel like a different person, and how you can be grateful to have escaped and be safe, yet still desperately long to go home.
Unfortunately, the prison element didn't work nearly as well for me. I think I understand the symbolism behind it — feeling imprisoned by caring for her father and by her longing for Turkey — but it still felt like the weakest part of the novel.
Beautiful writing and some incredibly moving observations, but the central metaphor never quite connected with me.
February 14, 2026
4/4.5
Renovation is the debut novel by Kenan Orhan and gives us the story of Dilara, her husband and father. They have fled to Italy to escape Erdoğan's regime in Turkey. But Dilara cannot find work and soon finds herself beginning to become her father's carer as his memory loss descends into Alzheimer's.
In order to give her father more space Dilara and her husband remodel their apartment to give themselves a private bathroom but the builders are curiously secretive about the work until completion. As Dilara pulls back the curtain which has kept the bathroom under wraps she finds herself in a cell in a Turkish prison. She can move between the two countries with ease but how to explain this to her husband, who already fears they are being kept under surveillance.
Kenan Orhan's fascinating novel delves into the political situation in Turkey as well as dealing with Dilara's increasingly precarious personal life. It almost feels as though the erasure of Turkey's past as Erdoğan moulds the country in his own image, mirrors the loss of her father's memory and her own faulty recollections. The prison cell, which Dilara's husband fears becomes a refuge for Dilara as her father's disease progresses.
The premise of the novel is startling but doesn't go where I expected at all. Dilara could easily become a figure of pity but her natural resilience and ability to adapt make her a very sympathetic character, full of determination to survive.
I would definitely recommend this novel and am keen to read more by Orhan.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for the digital review copy.
Renovation is the debut novel by Kenan Orhan and gives us the story of Dilara, her husband and father. They have fled to Italy to escape Erdoğan's regime in Turkey. But Dilara cannot find work and soon finds herself beginning to become her father's carer as his memory loss descends into Alzheimer's.
In order to give her father more space Dilara and her husband remodel their apartment to give themselves a private bathroom but the builders are curiously secretive about the work until completion. As Dilara pulls back the curtain which has kept the bathroom under wraps she finds herself in a cell in a Turkish prison. She can move between the two countries with ease but how to explain this to her husband, who already fears they are being kept under surveillance.
Kenan Orhan's fascinating novel delves into the political situation in Turkey as well as dealing with Dilara's increasingly precarious personal life. It almost feels as though the erasure of Turkey's past as Erdoğan moulds the country in his own image, mirrors the loss of her father's memory and her own faulty recollections. The prison cell, which Dilara's husband fears becomes a refuge for Dilara as her father's disease progresses.
The premise of the novel is startling but doesn't go where I expected at all. Dilara could easily become a figure of pity but her natural resilience and ability to adapt make her a very sympathetic character, full of determination to survive.
I would definitely recommend this novel and am keen to read more by Orhan.
Thankyou to Netgalley and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for the digital review copy.
August 8, 2026
3.5 stars
The detailed review I posted last week has disappeared from Goodreads.
The detailed review I posted last week has disappeared from Goodreads.
August 26, 2026
"Exile is an abusive relationship, and even when you leave, when you pack up your duffel bag, and take off into the long, long sea hoping to resurface in some shining world without pain, and instead end up in a place with its own harms and passions and joys and tortures (that is everywhere), and you set up a life again, safeguarded this time, put into a special box, your homeland reaches out a cruel hand and injures you again, even here, even in your haven, because what people don't mention about exile is the hostages it creates."
August 12, 2026
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize (if it means anything).
Kenan Orhan tells us an agonizing story about living and taking care of a loved one with a progressive degenerative disorder (Alzheimer’s - interesting how 2 longlisted books this year deal with dementia). She also tells us a heartbreaking story about leaving one’s mother country and missing it while also romanticizing it.
And she does it all by focusing on events inside the MC’s apartment in Italy. In particular, the bathroom, which was renovated into the cell of a prison in Turkey (with actual access to the prison).
This is another of those books that asks us to slow down. Nothing much happens in terms of the plot, but every excruciating detail of Dilara’s mundane and crumbling reality is compelling. Dilara is human; she is flawed; her thoughts and her actions (or lack thereof) are the consequences of an aggravated reality that sediments slowly day by day.
This book is ambitious, sometimes too much. Occasionally, it felt flat, possibly due to the narrator - though I’m not sure what kind of narrator could have made it more engaging.
TW: Dementia, grief, displacement
Kenan Orhan tells us an agonizing story about living and taking care of a loved one with a progressive degenerative disorder (Alzheimer’s - interesting how 2 longlisted books this year deal with dementia). She also tells us a heartbreaking story about leaving one’s mother country and missing it while also romanticizing it.
And she does it all by focusing on events inside the MC’s apartment in Italy. In particular, the bathroom, which was renovated into the cell of a prison in Turkey (with actual access to the prison).
This is another of those books that asks us to slow down. Nothing much happens in terms of the plot, but every excruciating detail of Dilara’s mundane and crumbling reality is compelling. Dilara is human; she is flawed; her thoughts and her actions (or lack thereof) are the consequences of an aggravated reality that sediments slowly day by day.
This book is ambitious, sometimes too much. Occasionally, it felt flat, possibly due to the narrator - though I’m not sure what kind of narrator could have made it more engaging.
TW: Dementia, grief, displacement
Read
July 31, 2025For every exile, there is a family of hostages, a host of lovers, friends, colleagues, rivals, affable greengrocers, lascivious taxi drivers - all left behind in their hostage's bindings, and the country calls out that it misses you, don't you miss it back?
How does one escape a homeland turned dictatorship? As it turns out, one cannot — the prison follows them wherever they go. In a feat of magical realism, Kenan Orhan vividly depicts what it means to never escape one's country of origin, especially when forced to flee. Considering my own country's long but definitive path toward an outright dictatorship, I can't say I haven't been thinking about leaving recently, so this novel hit too close to home. And that's good. I needed to know that, even if I left, the prison would follow me.
How does one escape a homeland turned dictatorship? As it turns out, one cannot — the prison follows them wherever they go. In a feat of magical realism, Kenan Orhan vividly depicts what it means to never escape one's country of origin, especially when forced to flee. Considering my own country's long but definitive path toward an outright dictatorship, I can't say I haven't been thinking about leaving recently, so this novel hit too close to home. And that's good. I needed to know that, even if I left, the prison would follow me.
August 7, 2026
Bazen bazı kitapları okumak çok zor oluyor. Satırlar büyük bir kalp kırıklığı yaratıyor. Seni hem kendinle hem de içinde hapsettiğin diğer kendinle yüzleştiriyor. Bir yandan iki tarafın savaşını izlemek gibi. Üstelik iki taraf da haklı.
Renovation benim için öyle bir roman oldu.
2013’te Türkiye’den ayrıldığımdan beri zaman zaman yüzleştiğim, zaman zaman kaçtığım bütün gerçekliklerle ve yakın tarihle beni acımasızca karşı karşıya getirdi. Sonlara doğru nefes alamadığımı hissedip bir süre ara vermek zorunda kaldım. Kalktım, kendime bir kahve yaptım. Sonra kitabı elimden bırakamadım ve şimdi, uyuyamadan bitirdim.
Elim böğrümde, Dilara’yla birlikte gün içinde o hapishanedeyim ben de. Yeni bir tutuklanma haberi duyduğumda, adaletin artık çok uzaklarda bir yerde olduğunu anladığımda, bütün bunları kanıksadığım için üzülüp vicdan azabı çektiğimde… Hepsinde. En son mesela Deniz Göktaş’ın içeri girmesinde.
İşte Dilara da ülkeden kaçmış. Ama diyor ya Kavafis, “Yeni bir ülke bulamazsın.” Bulamıyorsun hakikaten.
Okurken bütün yakın tarih Dilara’yla beraber benim de gözümün önünden geçti. En çok da 2018 seçimlerinde içimde “Ya acaba?” diye yeşeren umudun nasıl solduğunu anımsadım. En çok ona üzüldüm.
Tüm bunların yanında Kenan Orhan, hasta birinin, özellikle de demans hastası birinin bakımının ne denli yorucu, yıpratıcı ve acılı bir süreç olduğunu defalarca ama asla acındırmadan gösteriyor. Dilara’nın o sıkışmışlık hissini, esaretini; hem babasına hem de kaçamadığı ülkesine olan esaretini o kadar iyi hissettim ki. Gidip ona sarılmak, pencereyi açmak ve “Geçecek. Yalnız değilsin.” demek istedim.
Almanya’da A1 sınavına girdiğimde hepimize nereli olduğumuzu sormuşlardı. Ukraynalı bir mülteci, “Mein Heimat ist Ukraine,” demişti. Çok etkilenmiştim. Burada Dilara’nın kocası da sonlara doğru aynı şeyi söylüyor:
“There is a home and there is a homeland and they aren’t always the same.”
O kadar doğru ki. Evindesin ama vatanında değilsin. Evindesin ama orası tam olarak evin de değil. Dilara’nın dediği gibi, sanki üvey babanmış gibi.
Türkçeye çevrilecek mi bilmiyorum. Çevrilirse ne kadar sansür yiyecek, onu da bilmiyorum. Ama Kenan Orhan, böyle bir romanı bu derece açık ve yürekli bir şekilde yazdığı için benim kalbimi inanılmaz fethetti. Artık ne yazsa okurum sanırım.
Umarım shortlist’e kalır. Hatta umarım Booker’ı alır.
Renovation benim için öyle bir roman oldu.
2013’te Türkiye’den ayrıldığımdan beri zaman zaman yüzleştiğim, zaman zaman kaçtığım bütün gerçekliklerle ve yakın tarihle beni acımasızca karşı karşıya getirdi. Sonlara doğru nefes alamadığımı hissedip bir süre ara vermek zorunda kaldım. Kalktım, kendime bir kahve yaptım. Sonra kitabı elimden bırakamadım ve şimdi, uyuyamadan bitirdim.
Elim böğrümde, Dilara’yla birlikte gün içinde o hapishanedeyim ben de. Yeni bir tutuklanma haberi duyduğumda, adaletin artık çok uzaklarda bir yerde olduğunu anladığımda, bütün bunları kanıksadığım için üzülüp vicdan azabı çektiğimde… Hepsinde. En son mesela Deniz Göktaş’ın içeri girmesinde.
İşte Dilara da ülkeden kaçmış. Ama diyor ya Kavafis, “Yeni bir ülke bulamazsın.” Bulamıyorsun hakikaten.
Okurken bütün yakın tarih Dilara’yla beraber benim de gözümün önünden geçti. En çok da 2018 seçimlerinde içimde “Ya acaba?” diye yeşeren umudun nasıl solduğunu anımsadım. En çok ona üzüldüm.
Tüm bunların yanında Kenan Orhan, hasta birinin, özellikle de demans hastası birinin bakımının ne denli yorucu, yıpratıcı ve acılı bir süreç olduğunu defalarca ama asla acındırmadan gösteriyor. Dilara’nın o sıkışmışlık hissini, esaretini; hem babasına hem de kaçamadığı ülkesine olan esaretini o kadar iyi hissettim ki. Gidip ona sarılmak, pencereyi açmak ve “Geçecek. Yalnız değilsin.” demek istedim.
Almanya’da A1 sınavına girdiğimde hepimize nereli olduğumuzu sormuşlardı. Ukraynalı bir mülteci, “Mein Heimat ist Ukraine,” demişti. Çok etkilenmiştim. Burada Dilara’nın kocası da sonlara doğru aynı şeyi söylüyor:
“There is a home and there is a homeland and they aren’t always the same.”
O kadar doğru ki. Evindesin ama vatanında değilsin. Evindesin ama orası tam olarak evin de değil. Dilara’nın dediği gibi, sanki üvey babanmış gibi.
Türkçeye çevrilecek mi bilmiyorum. Çevrilirse ne kadar sansür yiyecek, onu da bilmiyorum. Ama Kenan Orhan, böyle bir romanı bu derece açık ve yürekli bir şekilde yazdığı için benim kalbimi inanılmaz fethetti. Artık ne yazsa okurum sanırım.
Umarım shortlist’e kalır. Hatta umarım Booker’ı alır.
August 11, 2026
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan — ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
I've been on a surrealist kick lately — Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, some Kafka — so The Renovation landed right in my wheelhouse. This year's Booker longlist is full of wacky, weird premises, and while this one isn't the strangest of the bunch, its central conceit still caught me: Dilara, a Turkish exile living in an unremarkable Italian village, discovers during a renovation that her bathroom has been turned into a prison cell — one mysteriously linked to a real prison back in Turkey. Every time she steps inside, she's pulled back to her homeland.
From there the novel unspools the story of how her family ended up in Italy: the protests, the coup attempt against Erdoğan, her father's beating at the hands of political thugs, and the flight that followed. Alongside that runs the present-day thread of Dilara caring for her father as his Alzheimer's worsens. It's a genuinely claustrophobic, tense book, heartbreaking in places, and it never lets you settle.
The themes are doing a lot of work, and doing it well. Exile and displacement, obviously — but the prison cell is the sharper metaphor here, standing in for how a country that expels you can still hold you captive, how leaving doesn't mean escaping its grip. Memory and identity run just as deep: watching her father lose his sense of who Dilara is, and who he is, made me think about how much of identity is just accumulated memory — and what's left of a person once that scaffolding falls away. Her mother, meanwhile, haunts the book as a kind of absent, ghostly presence throughout.
Two things kept me from loving it unreservedly. This year's longlist seems to have a number of whiny men, and Dilara's husband fits right into that mold. And without spoiling it, the ending stung. That said, by the time it arrives, it does feel inevitable rather than cheap; the whole novel is built toward that inevitability, which is its own kind of achievement.
I've been on a surrealist kick lately — Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, some Kafka — so The Renovation landed right in my wheelhouse. This year's Booker longlist is full of wacky, weird premises, and while this one isn't the strangest of the bunch, its central conceit still caught me: Dilara, a Turkish exile living in an unremarkable Italian village, discovers during a renovation that her bathroom has been turned into a prison cell — one mysteriously linked to a real prison back in Turkey. Every time she steps inside, she's pulled back to her homeland.
From there the novel unspools the story of how her family ended up in Italy: the protests, the coup attempt against Erdoğan, her father's beating at the hands of political thugs, and the flight that followed. Alongside that runs the present-day thread of Dilara caring for her father as his Alzheimer's worsens. It's a genuinely claustrophobic, tense book, heartbreaking in places, and it never lets you settle.
The themes are doing a lot of work, and doing it well. Exile and displacement, obviously — but the prison cell is the sharper metaphor here, standing in for how a country that expels you can still hold you captive, how leaving doesn't mean escaping its grip. Memory and identity run just as deep: watching her father lose his sense of who Dilara is, and who he is, made me think about how much of identity is just accumulated memory — and what's left of a person once that scaffolding falls away. Her mother, meanwhile, haunts the book as a kind of absent, ghostly presence throughout.
Two things kept me from loving it unreservedly. This year's longlist seems to have a number of whiny men, and Dilara's husband fits right into that mold. And without spoiling it, the ending stung. That said, by the time it arrives, it does feel inevitable rather than cheap; the whole novel is built toward that inevitability, which is its own kind of achievement.
August 15, 2026
This is a solid story. Not a big fan of magic realism, which this book gets billed as but sort of not really. A good inclusion in the Booker longlist. 3.5 rounded up.
June 11, 2026
What a wild conceit! A woman and her husband are caring for her aging Father who is deep in the throes of Alzheimer's disease, they are having a bathroom renovation done and the builders will not let them see a thing until it's complete. When it's finally finished the woman proceeds to pull back the tarp and a bathroom she does not find! what is there is a real life prison cell, an actual portal into the infamous Silivri Prison in Istanbul. What!?!?
I really liked this book, it surprised me the whole way along and the ending knocked me over. This book speaks to what it feels like to miss your homeland and what it feels like to take care of someone you love. It's a book of displacement and exile, the sense of disquietude throughout is unsettling, and I enjoyed the author's thoughtful writing style very much. There is magical realism that doesn't care about your "why" and "how" questions and while there is a portal into a prison there is also so much grounded in reality, in real life Turkey, in very real people with very real problems. This was not a plot heavy book, but it was so profound, so much to think about. 5 stars all the way!
I really liked this book, it surprised me the whole way along and the ending knocked me over. This book speaks to what it feels like to miss your homeland and what it feels like to take care of someone you love. It's a book of displacement and exile, the sense of disquietude throughout is unsettling, and I enjoyed the author's thoughtful writing style very much. There is magical realism that doesn't care about your "why" and "how" questions and while there is a portal into a prison there is also so much grounded in reality, in real life Turkey, in very real people with very real problems. This was not a plot heavy book, but it was so profound, so much to think about. 5 stars all the way!
March 5, 2026
Dilara, an immigrant to Italy from Turkey, hires a few dodgy builders to renovate her ensuite bathroom at her house in Baronissi, Italy. It is to accommodate her dying father. What she finds, is a complete prison cell, a replica of one at Istanbul’s huge Silivri Prison, along with guards and fellow inmates with whom she is able to converse to regularly.
As obvious a metaphor as it seems, Orhan writes Dilara’s character as deadpan, a child psychologist trying to understand the meaning of her new world.
There’s a few reasons I don’t think that the attractive premise works well; Dilara not questioning the situation she finds herself in, and also that the book soon becomes overtly political.
As obvious a metaphor as it seems, Orhan writes Dilara’s character as deadpan, a child psychologist trying to understand the meaning of her new world.
There’s a few reasons I don’t think that the attractive premise works well; Dilara not questioning the situation she finds herself in, and also that the book soon becomes overtly political.
August 19, 2026
What is a prison sentence if not s self-imposed exile when you lose the person you were before, lose your joys and sorrows and hopes, and become yourself a prison cell?
School psychologist Dilara has fled from Erdogan’s Turkey with her university lecturer father who is a target of the regime and is rapidly falling into dementia. Her husband, an anxious man who was an accountant and now works as a mechanic, joins the as they resettle in the Italian countryside.
But quickly, things go wrong. When Dilara decides to remodel the bathroom attached to her bedroom, the surly and secretive builders won’t let her check their progress. After they hurriedly leave, Dilara is shocked to discover that where her shower and double vanity should have been, there is a perfect tableau of a prison cell. It is modeled after Silivri Prison in Istanbul. All her calls to the builders to rectify the mistake go to voicemail. Her husband, already a bundle of nerves, quickly vacates the place and moves away from her.
Dilara’s cell is metaphorical of course – her own politically imposed exile from the country she loves, with its beautiful sea and the smell of marzipan and her father’s favorite coffee shop. Now left alone, far away from relatives, now the sole caregiver of her father, who is rapidly losing his memories, she is also increasingly entombed in her father’s implosion into eternity. Day after day, the indignities mount: dealing with his slipping mind, his bodily functions, his belief that she is not herself, but her mother. The memories her father held so clearly, memories that have sustained her in her new home that does not feel like home, are disappearing. And she is losing her grip on her past.
As her father deteriorates, she seeks refuge in the cell, trying to connect with the women who suddenly appear in the prison. Yet as someone who has escaped, she is not part of them – nor is she a part of the county she escaped to. Still, the cell offers some solace and connection to her true homeland.
It is impossible to read The Renovation without connecting the dots to the present regime in the United States, where corruption reigns, beauty is destroyed, and the values we abided by are fading and unrecognizable. The Renovation is a book of identity and belonging, of trying to find pathways home, and of the despair that follows when adult children turn parents into portals and the portals gradually close. It is the story of modern exile and how much we give up when our own memories – and the memories of one-time parental caregivers – fade, leaving everything stark.
August 6, 2026
3.5 stars
The world is pretty surreal right now, and so is having a Turkish prison cell fitted instead of a bathroom. I’m glad I read this book, if only for my thoughts that although about the turmoil of Turkey, I feel this book has a bigger world view (and even serves as a warning).
Given Dilara, her husband and father are political exiles in Italy, the cell is a shadow of the upheaval in their homeland and serves as a metaphor for not just this, but also their loss and displacement. Also the massive weight of caregiving for a parent with dementia and the limitations this (loving) task puts on one’s life.
Written in relatively simple and very readable prose, Dilara’s voice does not feel like it’s coming from a male author. Strangely, the prison cell becomes an exile in itself for Dilara, somewhere she escapes into to get away from the pressures in her own home life. Given she can leave whenever she wants, there’s a strange further tied up metaphor lurking on the fact that the prison cell becomes both exile and solace to her. If she had stayed in Turkey this would have been both her and her father’s reality.
A woman abandoned. By her own country, bringing about a loss of belonging and culture, by the loss of her father, through his loss of self in dementia, and her husband’s physical leaving through his own fear and weakness. I like to think that the magical realism was instead a descent into madness, this to me would give the story much more weight.
* later - I’m still thinking about it today, although it wasn’t a book I loved, it will absolutely stay with me and I can’t help feel it would deepen on a second read. I understand its place in the Booker longlist as much as I understand why Strout and Stuart are there with their magnificent writing. This was not magnificent writing in my eyes, but it was clever and extremely thought provoking. I keep thinking about the parallels between the downward trajectory of Turkey and other countries in our world right now in regard to right wing politics.
The world is pretty surreal right now, and so is having a Turkish prison cell fitted instead of a bathroom. I’m glad I read this book, if only for my thoughts that although about the turmoil of Turkey, I feel this book has a bigger world view (and even serves as a warning).
Given Dilara, her husband and father are political exiles in Italy, the cell is a shadow of the upheaval in their homeland and serves as a metaphor for not just this, but also their loss and displacement. Also the massive weight of caregiving for a parent with dementia and the limitations this (loving) task puts on one’s life.
Written in relatively simple and very readable prose, Dilara’s voice does not feel like it’s coming from a male author. Strangely, the prison cell becomes an exile in itself for Dilara, somewhere she escapes into to get away from the pressures in her own home life. Given she can leave whenever she wants, there’s a strange further tied up metaphor lurking on the fact that the prison cell becomes both exile and solace to her. If she had stayed in Turkey this would have been both her and her father’s reality.
A woman abandoned. By her own country, bringing about a loss of belonging and culture, by the loss of her father, through his loss of self in dementia, and her husband’s physical leaving through his own fear and weakness. I like to think that the magical realism was instead a descent into madness, this to me would give the story much more weight.
* later - I’m still thinking about it today, although it wasn’t a book I loved, it will absolutely stay with me and I can’t help feel it would deepen on a second read. I understand its place in the Booker longlist as much as I understand why Strout and Stuart are there with their magnificent writing. This was not magnificent writing in my eyes, but it was clever and extremely thought provoking. I keep thinking about the parallels between the downward trajectory of Turkey and other countries in our world right now in regard to right wing politics.
August 4, 2025
⭐⭐⭐⭐
In this story we follow Dilara, a Turkish school psychologist who has exiled herself to Italy. Our story starts when what was supposed to be a renovated bathroom turns out to be a cell in a well-known Turkish prison. In this tale we explore a plethora of topics such as being a caregiver of your dad, homesickness for a country you abandoned, and the ambiguity it brings. It was filled with beautiful and purple prose and a very rich inner monologue.
While the premise is quite bizarre, the book is mainly character-focused, accepting the magical realism that is present throughout it. The book could be described as melancholic, with lots of longing, whether it's for a dead parent, an absent husband, or the past that will never come back. Additionally, as we follow the past timeline where she still lived in Turkey, we get a lot of insight about the political climate and historical facts, which was reminiscent of The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Overall, a highly recommended novel for those who are looking for an emotional novel with some touches of magical realism.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!
In this story we follow Dilara, a Turkish school psychologist who has exiled herself to Italy. Our story starts when what was supposed to be a renovated bathroom turns out to be a cell in a well-known Turkish prison. In this tale we explore a plethora of topics such as being a caregiver of your dad, homesickness for a country you abandoned, and the ambiguity it brings. It was filled with beautiful and purple prose and a very rich inner monologue.
While the premise is quite bizarre, the book is mainly character-focused, accepting the magical realism that is present throughout it. The book could be described as melancholic, with lots of longing, whether it's for a dead parent, an absent husband, or the past that will never come back. Additionally, as we follow the past timeline where she still lived in Turkey, we get a lot of insight about the political climate and historical facts, which was reminiscent of The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Overall, a highly recommended novel for those who are looking for an emotional novel with some touches of magical realism.
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!
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