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The Renovation
A dazzlingly original new voice in literary fiction for fans of Ali Smith, Mohsin Hamid and Elif Shafak
The Renovation is a heart-breaking portrait of one family caught in the tides of history, grappling with grief, exile, politics and the painful absurdity of love
Dilara’s father is disappearing. His memories are collapsing, dementia stealing a little more of him each day. She has persuaded him to move in with her, hiring builders to adapt her apartment to his new needs, but when the renovation is complete she discovers a big problem: instead of a new en-suite bathroom, the builders have installed a Turkish prison cell.
At first she is outraged. There has surely been some mistake. Dilara’s family are exiles – they left Turkey many years ago and have never been back. The last thing she wants is a piece of her estranged homeland appearing uninvited in her new home.
But as the weeks pass, her indignation gradually gives way to curiosity. Beyond the cell door, she glimpses Turkish guards going about their work. Through the cell walls, she hears Turkish prisoners murmuring, rustling, crying out in their sleep. And in the strange, impossible air of the cell itself, she smells the sesame scent of freshly baked simit, she tastes the fine dust of the Anatolian steppe on her tongue.
Even as she struggles to care for her father, to keep the family finances afloat and stop the wheels coming off her marriage, Dilara is drawn back again and again to the mysterious prison cell, and through it to a city that once belonged to her – to the salt wind off the Marmara, the sky full of gulls and domes and minarets – drawn inexorably back to Istanbul.
The Renovation is a heart-breaking portrait of one family caught in the tides of history, grappling with grief, exile, politics and the painful absurdity of love
Dilara’s father is disappearing. His memories are collapsing, dementia stealing a little more of him each day. She has persuaded him to move in with her, hiring builders to adapt her apartment to his new needs, but when the renovation is complete she discovers a big problem: instead of a new en-suite bathroom, the builders have installed a Turkish prison cell.
At first she is outraged. There has surely been some mistake. Dilara’s family are exiles – they left Turkey many years ago and have never been back. The last thing she wants is a piece of her estranged homeland appearing uninvited in her new home.
But as the weeks pass, her indignation gradually gives way to curiosity. Beyond the cell door, she glimpses Turkish guards going about their work. Through the cell walls, she hears Turkish prisoners murmuring, rustling, crying out in their sleep. And in the strange, impossible air of the cell itself, she smells the sesame scent of freshly baked simit, she tastes the fine dust of the Anatolian steppe on her tongue.
Even as she struggles to care for her father, to keep the family finances afloat and stop the wheels coming off her marriage, Dilara is drawn back again and again to the mysterious prison cell, and through it to a city that once belonged to her – to the salt wind off the Marmara, the sky full of gulls and domes and minarets – drawn inexorably back to Istanbul.
240 pages, Hardcover
Published March 26, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
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
May 4, 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.
"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.
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 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!**
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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 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!
April 16, 2026
Picked this up to read along with the NYT Book Review podcast and while this is not my usual fare, I did think it was well-written, but sad. Dilara, her husband and her father are exiles from Turkey, living in a small Italian village. Her father's writing and teaching forced them to flee and while they are physically safe, they are all unhappy about the situation. The father has Alzheimer's and is deteriorating rapidly. Dilara is his primary caretaker and her husband buckles and leaves due to the stress and the new bathroom renovation in their apartment. The new bathroom is a prison cell from their old country and once it cannot be removed, Dilara spends more and more time there. Turkish politics fuel this story and Dilara's decision making is driven by her desperate circumstances after she loses her job and income. Looking forward to hearing the discussion of this book; it is relatively short, but very moving.
January 19, 2026
"𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺, 𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦."
Dilara was thorough with the builders when it came to the bathroom renovation. They discussed and selected materials and products and determined cost. So, she is shocked to find that instead of a new bathroom, the builders have somehow built a portal to a Turkish prison cell. While she is upset at first, she grows to enjoy the sanctuary of the cell as a connection to her homeland and a respite from the growing pressures of her marriage, caring for her aging father, and trying to build a meaningful life in Italy, the country she now calls "home".
This was a quick read that really packs a punch. It's beautifully written and while it's themes make it heavy and emotional, it was easily readable. It tackles concepts of migration and otherness, aging and the hardships of caretaking, memory and family dynamics. The prison cell acts as a perfect metaphor for Dilara's experience, as caregiver and political refugee.
What I most took away while reading was the insight into the contemporary politics of Turkey, and how eerily similar the authoritarianism mirrors the situation in America. Arresting and brutalizing vocal citizens, changing the names of institutions and organizations to cement legacy. It happened in Turkey, it's happened many places before, it's happening here, and that's terrifying.
Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for the ARC. I requested this solely for the cover so colour me happily surprised! This is a wildly impressive debut novel, following Orhan's short story collection from a few years ago, and I think he's definitely one to watch.
Dilara was thorough with the builders when it came to the bathroom renovation. They discussed and selected materials and products and determined cost. So, she is shocked to find that instead of a new bathroom, the builders have somehow built a portal to a Turkish prison cell. While she is upset at first, she grows to enjoy the sanctuary of the cell as a connection to her homeland and a respite from the growing pressures of her marriage, caring for her aging father, and trying to build a meaningful life in Italy, the country she now calls "home".
This was a quick read that really packs a punch. It's beautifully written and while it's themes make it heavy and emotional, it was easily readable. It tackles concepts of migration and otherness, aging and the hardships of caretaking, memory and family dynamics. The prison cell acts as a perfect metaphor for Dilara's experience, as caregiver and political refugee.
What I most took away while reading was the insight into the contemporary politics of Turkey, and how eerily similar the authoritarianism mirrors the situation in America. Arresting and brutalizing vocal citizens, changing the names of institutions and organizations to cement legacy. It happened in Turkey, it's happened many places before, it's happening here, and that's terrifying.
Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for the ARC. I requested this solely for the cover so colour me happily surprised! This is a wildly impressive debut novel, following Orhan's short story collection from a few years ago, and I think he's definitely one to watch.
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.
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.
March 28, 2026
I read Kenan Orhan’s debut book in one sitting. It reflected back to me feelings I had been afraid to admit to myself. Was drawn to it, yet also worried about the premise—that it might feel too familiar, even triggering. And yet, the comforts of home Dilara found in the prison were a kind of balm to my grief. Helped embrace the idea of having many homes, even if there remains a constant longing for the homeland, for the people we once were.
September 15, 2025
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan is a haunting, surreal debut, a meditation on memory, displacement and psychological scars. When her second bathroom is renovated to resemble a notorious prison cell. Dilara, a psychologist caring for her dementia suffering father in Italy, is troubled by this invasion of a past they were attempting to escape into this, their present. Orhan keeps the reader guessing, and reality and fiction fuse as the narrative books deepen into the reader, with the lyricism of Orhan's prose carrying us through.
This was a staggering debut in its ambition - and though I feel a second read might solidify it in my mind - on first reading it is still gripping and insightful. I am certainly very keen to see what Kenan Orhan does next - I feel we might be at the beginning of a great career here.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
This was a staggering debut in its ambition - and though I feel a second read might solidify it in my mind - on first reading it is still gripping and insightful. I am certainly very keen to see what Kenan Orhan does next - I feel we might be at the beginning of a great career here.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
October 7, 2025
The premise of the novel is surreal and delivers on the magic realism: An exile from Turkey living in Italy with her ailing father discovers, in place of a renovated bathroom, an en suite prison cell. Not just any prison cell, but a specific women's prison in Turkey—effectively creating a portal or hinge between her two worlds.
Home and homeland. Home and "step father country" as the narrator Dilara once describes it, feeling as though her very identity is different in Italy due to, among other things, living in a new language. And not just because she's less proficient:
"As we learn a new language... we become a different person. As we access different linguistic structures, our personalities shift: to refelct the different concepts available to us through different words... In Italian, I have become a more buoyant peroson. I know the words for happy, nice, beautiful, joyful, kind, generous, love, warmth... I'd lost that melancholic language I had grown so reliant upon in Turkish." But the realization itself is a melancholic one, full of regret and yearning.
I found these reflections on personhood in relation to nationhood fascinating, especially because the narrator's father is in the late stages of dementia and losing his memories. In fact, he's never really left Turkey due to his mind's degeneration. Yet he's surely becoming less of the person he used to be—but is he less of a person all together?
Honestly, Dilara's yearning for a Turkey that doesn't exist anymore due to the authoritarian government and her evolving relationship with her father (the descriptions of caretaking a deteriorating parent are truly moving) are the highlights of this book.
The prison as an extended metaphor becomes clear and maybe a bit too pat by the end—I won't spoil it. But shockingly, given the premise and subject matter, the pace feels off as though there's a lack of stakes. The novel becomes a slog at times, indulging in historical exposition dumps that sit atop the story like a film rather than being absorbed into and enriching the texture of the prose.
Ultimately, I'm happy I read it for several key moments and passages but I did need to force myself to finish.
[I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley. Thank you to the publisher! Opinions are my own.]
Home and homeland. Home and "step father country" as the narrator Dilara once describes it, feeling as though her very identity is different in Italy due to, among other things, living in a new language. And not just because she's less proficient:
"As we learn a new language... we become a different person. As we access different linguistic structures, our personalities shift: to refelct the different concepts available to us through different words... In Italian, I have become a more buoyant peroson. I know the words for happy, nice, beautiful, joyful, kind, generous, love, warmth... I'd lost that melancholic language I had grown so reliant upon in Turkish." But the realization itself is a melancholic one, full of regret and yearning.
I found these reflections on personhood in relation to nationhood fascinating, especially because the narrator's father is in the late stages of dementia and losing his memories. In fact, he's never really left Turkey due to his mind's degeneration. Yet he's surely becoming less of the person he used to be—but is he less of a person all together?
Honestly, Dilara's yearning for a Turkey that doesn't exist anymore due to the authoritarian government and her evolving relationship with her father (the descriptions of caretaking a deteriorating parent are truly moving) are the highlights of this book.
The prison as an extended metaphor becomes clear and maybe a bit too pat by the end—I won't spoil it. But shockingly, given the premise and subject matter, the pace feels off as though there's a lack of stakes. The novel becomes a slog at times, indulging in historical exposition dumps that sit atop the story like a film rather than being absorbed into and enriching the texture of the prose.
Ultimately, I'm happy I read it for several key moments and passages but I did need to force myself to finish.
[I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley. Thank you to the publisher! Opinions are my own.]
April 10, 2026
NetGalley review:
This is a book that is meant to be read slowly and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The concept intrigued me and most definitely delivered.
Many brilliant quotes throughout the book that I have a feeling I will return to.
I'm fortunate enough to never have experienced fleeing a country or feeling the pain that is losing a loved one to dementia but I felt the contradicting feelings of Dilara.
Reading this I realized how little I know of Turkish politics and the regime that has ruled for a decade. This is, contrary to what I've heard of before, a very open critique of the governmental rule, and one that will probably follow me for a while.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book.
This is a book that is meant to be read slowly and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The concept intrigued me and most definitely delivered.
Many brilliant quotes throughout the book that I have a feeling I will return to.
I'm fortunate enough to never have experienced fleeing a country or feeling the pain that is losing a loved one to dementia but I felt the contradicting feelings of Dilara.
Reading this I realized how little I know of Turkish politics and the regime that has ruled for a decade. This is, contrary to what I've heard of before, a very open critique of the governmental rule, and one that will probably follow me for a while.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book.
October 17, 2025
The very first page of The Renovation is a dedication, to all caregivers. The story itself opens with the main premise, that a botched bathroom renovation job has replaced Dilara and her husband’s apartment bathroom in Italy with a prison cell in Türkiye. From there we learn a bit about Dilara’s family history, and that she is a Turkish immigrant to Italy and taking care of her aged father who has been suffering from dementia. At this point I wasn’t too impressed. Imprisonment as a metaphor for caregiving, it’s a bit on the nose. But the novel has more to say and the metaphor becomes more layered. It goes on to explore the political conditions in Türkiye that caused Dilara and her husband and father to leave for an unfamiliar country, and what exactly she left behind. It explores the hidden costs of a state’s slide into an authoritarian regime. The prison becomes a metaphor for both the personal and the political, and the way those aspects of one’s life are vitally enmeshed. Ultimately it had me fully engrossed. Feels like whatever the opposite of an escapist read would be, reading from 2025 Chicago, but because of that it felt necessary.
March 12, 2026
Instead of a new bathroom, Dilara finds the builders have installed a Turkish prison cell in her flat. She starts spending more time there talking to the prisoners and remembering Turkey to avoid her father dying of dementia in her (real) flat. Surreal and sad and very well-written without being pretentious.
“Exile is an abusive relationship, and even when you leave…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.”
“Exile is an abusive relationship, and even when you leave…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.”
February 10, 2026
3.75⭐️
Magical realism meets recent turkish history lesson (in an angsty manner)
In turkish we say, you can remove a person from Turkey, but you can't remove Turkey from a person. As an immigrant myself, I felt this to my core while reading this. political struggles, taking care of sick parents, different approaches to the current events even within our families, trying to find a job that aligns with our education and skills in a foreign country.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the arc, this is my honest opinion.
Magical realism meets recent turkish history lesson (in an angsty manner)
In turkish we say, you can remove a person from Turkey, but you can't remove Turkey from a person. As an immigrant myself, I felt this to my core while reading this. political struggles, taking care of sick parents, different approaches to the current events even within our families, trying to find a job that aligns with our education and skills in a foreign country.
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the arc, this is my honest opinion.
March 22, 2026
I don’t always love magical realism, but the strangeness of the concept — a renovated bathroom that turned out to be a jail cell in Silivri Prison — grabbed me straight away. The complex relationship between the protagonist and her father was another highlight.
April 7, 2026
This is a book of magic realism- not my favorite genre. The protagonist is a woman who has emigrated to Italy from Turkey with her father, an academic who has been black-listed by the Turkish government, and her husband who is very paranoid and anxious. She renovates a room into a bathroom in her apartment only to find when the contractors leave that it is prison cell in a notorious Turkish prison. As her father, who suffers from Alzheimer's, gets worse, and her husband abandons her, the woman begins to spend more and more time in the prison cell, which assuages her homesickness for Turkey. The parallels between the eroding of democracy by a strongman in Turkey are pretty uncomfortable in 2026 America and I emphasized with the woman's homesickness and the strain of caring for a loved one who is slipping away but I just couldn't buy the prison conceit.
April 20, 2026
Despite its magical realism, this novel captures a very realistic and relatable human experience. I connected with aspects of Dilara's immigrant experience--feeling displaced, caught between two countries, and not fully at home in either. The tension of caring for a parent who has become dependent was well-written, capturing that conflicted sense of obligation, "owing them everything and owing them nothing."
At times, the main character is frustrating, making questionable decisions--but I guess that makes her feel human. The pacing could have been tighter; the narrative occasionally drags, and some passages feel more indulgent than purposeful.
At times, the main character is frustrating, making questionable decisions--but I guess that makes her feel human. The pacing could have been tighter; the narrative occasionally drags, and some passages feel more indulgent than purposeful.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
When we emigrated, something about my dad’s condition, something about how he conflated the present with the past, kept me feeling safe—like we were bringing a little of the old Istanbul with us. It wasn’t so bad to leave the apartment I had grown up in, it wasn’t so bad to become an exile, it wasn’t so bad that our homeland was in ruins, because we had with us a little old man carrying its halcyon days in a kerchief on a stick. His voice came from before all the loss. The way he talked was a bridge to our lives left behind. Maybe that is what we do—the children, I mean: we make our parents into portals.
The debut novel from a Turkish-American author previously known for his short stories (and prize listed short story collection “I Am Country”) – and this novel too is an expanded version of a short story of the same name published in “The Atlantic” in 2023 and proceeding from the same premise.
A Turkish family (widowed political activist and University lecturer Father, school psychologist daughter and her accountant husband) fled Istanbul in 2017 after the threats of imminent repressive action from the Erdoğan regime became too clear to ignore and emigrate to a small commune in the Italian countryside (in Campania), the father by now suffering more and more clearly from dementia, the daughter/wife Dilara (our first party narrator) is unable to get a job and her husband can only get work as a mechanic.
At the story/novel’s opening – builders carrying out a renovation to expand the small en-suite in their bedroom (so as to let the Father – who now stays with them full time) instead inexplicably install a prison cell (straight from Silviri Prison – incidentally now Mamara Prison, the renaming of things by Erdoğan’s regime is a side-subject of the novel): a cell which turns out not just to resemble an Istanbul prison cell but to actually be one as prison guards walk outside the cells.
The guard, who really could have been my contractor in disguise, seemed genuinely shocked to see me. “What, what is this?” he exclaimed in Turkish. He paused with a stupefied look on his face, and I asked him in Italian to explain himself. Confused, he asked me in Turkish what I wanted. “Where am I?” I responded in Turkish. “Are you sick? Silivri Prison.” I was growing impatient. “That’s not right. This is supposed to be a waterfall shower with two heads and massaging jets and a marble bench.” “Massaging jets, haha! No, this is the prison.” “But what’s it doing in my bathroom?” I asked.
For her fearful husband this is too much and he moves away, for her Father increasingly lost in his own world it is of little consequence but for Dilara this leads to a complex set of emotions.
Initially it more brings back her memories of the deteriorating political regime in Turkey which lead to the families exile – we trace the history forwards from the Gezi Park protests, through to the July 2015 Gülen coup and beyond alongside the increasing erosion of political and human rights and of the economy, and the erosion of the secular Turkish republic.
And aside this she reflects on the experience of politically imposed exile – and though the prison cell and its sights and sounds (and the stories of the fellow prisoners who start to fill up neighbouring cells and who she starts to join in exercise periods) she starts to find same nostalgic even if laced in tragedy escape that she had originally found in her Father’s memories frozen in the past (he for example increasingly thinks she is her mother/his wife) – as tries to hold on to her own memories and sensory impressions of Istanbul.
And this leads to a series of moving passages and thoughtful reflections and a powerful and appropriate ending.
In an Atlantic interview accompanying the short story the author described articulately his choice of an absurdist premise to capture both political exile and neurological illness for a reader who has never experienced either, as well as the way in which both threads (exile and dementia) conflate ideas of memory, longing and loss – and I will quote this at length as it captures the novel’s ideas so well:
I have been obsessed with memory and loss lately. The idea of an ailing father, and a family in exile, fell out of the sky because I’ve been thinking about such things, reading about them too. Soon a dichotomy revealed itself, and I think dichotomies are a good base for short stories. There is natural tension and irony in the relationship: One person wishes only to remember, and one person can’t do it at all.
We pull a lot of our identities out from the soils of where we have lived, especially where we grew up. I think for anyone who has left behind some limb of themselves in another, unrevisited place, our natural inclination is to reexperience the things we miss through pictures. Often I find myself instead talking with relatives about memories of Istanbul, usually completely unspurred by external factors. Maybe we’re at a restaurant, and I might say I miss the marzipan of our favorite confectioners in Bebek. Then we take turns remembering the bakery and peripheral moments and then other places, almost like driving up the street of time, and they are nostalgic discussions—melancholic and brooding—but communal, sometimes even competitive (who can remember more precisely?). It’s a less harsh way of realigning our memories than relying on photographs. Photographs are unforgiving with their starkness. Relatives can allow for a freedom of reality. And that is what the narrator is doing, I think. She is using her father’s memories almost as a plane to travel back home. She wants to use his stunted memory to hold on to a past now obliterated. She is maintaining a pathway back to the city, back to her happiness and homeland, but as this starts to fade, she finds a similar tonic—a similar pathway—in the magic of the prison cell.
Alzheimer’s or any sort of neurological disease or mental illness is difficult to capture with realism, at least in any way that is interested in the experience of the illness. I don’t view reality as stably as I might, and I often find realism too impersonal for my taste. Political exile, on the other hand, is such an absurd and strange notion on its own that perhaps, like very good comedies and slapsticks, the more seriously you take it, the better it will be. But now I’ve now conflated seriousness with realism. I think a weakness of realism is that sometimes its scenes only speak deeply to those already affected by or familiar with the conditions described. That is why I favor a bit of surrealism/fabulism. The surreal can bridge the gaps of experience by weirding life down to a more universal ether. Someone who has never missed a homeland can better understand the longing when memories become magical. Loss and grief then become starker in the absence of this golden magic.
I include this at length as I think it captures so well why for me this was an outstanding novel – a melancholic but still powerful one which uses a unique device to cleverly conflates and capture two experiences (an elderly loved on suffering both a physical and mental reversion away from normality; and living under an oppressive regime which not just rides over accepted political norms but tries to redefine and relabel normality) which feel like increasingly are becoming the inevitable if terrible destiny of all our lives and all our countries.
As an aside I would say that the novel (as I commented) has universal applicability – but did have particular resonance for me – Istanbul was one of my favourite Cities in the world for its unparalleled history, fabulous cuisine (especially when served in Bosphorous-side restaurants some of which – just as for the narrator with a key memory – are perhaps idealised in my mind) and fantastical continent spanning location; and I spent various working trips there in the early 2010s working with various Turkish insurers and prospective investors in what was then seen as a country on an inevitable political and economic trajectory towards the West …….. so (to a very small extent) I share the narrator’s regret-tinged nostalgia for what has been lost.
A novel I would love to see gain prize recognition – not least on the Booker Prize (although I think the Orwell Prize and National Book Award are also strong possibilities).
My thanks to Penguin General and Farrar Strauss and Giroux for an ARC via NetGalley.
November 17, 2025
The Renovation feels like walking through a family home where every wall has absorbed a secret. Kenan Orhan doesn’t just tell a story; he builds an emotional architecture where each room holds a different burden: memory, shame, longing, and the uneasy pull of heritage that never sits still. The result is quietly devastating in the best possible way.
At the center of it all is the daughter and her father, whose Alzheimer’s adds a painful layer of erosion to an already fragile relationship. Orhan handles this with a kind of soft precision: the grief isn’t loud, but it’s persistent, like a drip you can’t fix behind the walls. Watching her navigate a parent who is simultaneously present and disappearing mirrors the larger themes of cultural displacement. Memory becomes unreliable, identity shifts, and the past refuses to stay in one piece.
This makes the home renovation metaphor land beautifully.Even the placement of the prison entrance says something. Sure, it can be interpreted as a simple matter of convenience or architectural strangeness, but it also resonates with the symbolic weight bathrooms often carry in literature. Bathrooms mark vulnerability and the collapse of the public self, and this book uses them exactly that way. They are pressure points of the story: whenever she steps into that space, something shifts. Truth rises. The emotions she keeps contained everywhere else begin to seep through. The bathroom becomes a tiny, tiled threshold where she confronts what she doesn’t want to see, making it a strangely fitting gateway to a deeper form of confinement she hasn’t fully named. It is a private stage where transformation or breakdown has no witnesses but the reader.
The father’s illness echoes through these spaces too. There’s a tenderness in how Orhan depicts the physical realities of care: cleaning, managing, tending to a body that no longer obeys. It’s intimate and raw, but never sentimental.
The themes woven through the narrative, migration, rootlessness, the splintering weight of identity, feel grounded and honest. Orhan doesn’t tidy up the mess; he lets displacement and memory sit as they are, jagged and unresolved. That restraint is part of what gives the novel its staying power.
It isn’t perfect. At times the emotional distance is stronger than I wanted, and certain transitions feel slightly abrupt. But the atmosphere, the emotional intelligence, and the quiet symbolic echoes make the book linger long after the last page.
A layered, intimate novel that explores memory, loss, and belonging with remarkable subtlety. It understands that the homes we inhabit are never just structures; they are repositories for every version of ourselves we haven’t figured out how to let go of.
At the center of it all is the daughter and her father, whose Alzheimer’s adds a painful layer of erosion to an already fragile relationship. Orhan handles this with a kind of soft precision: the grief isn’t loud, but it’s persistent, like a drip you can’t fix behind the walls. Watching her navigate a parent who is simultaneously present and disappearing mirrors the larger themes of cultural displacement. Memory becomes unreliable, identity shifts, and the past refuses to stay in one piece.
This makes the home renovation metaphor land beautifully.Even the placement of the prison entrance says something. Sure, it can be interpreted as a simple matter of convenience or architectural strangeness, but it also resonates with the symbolic weight bathrooms often carry in literature. Bathrooms mark vulnerability and the collapse of the public self, and this book uses them exactly that way. They are pressure points of the story: whenever she steps into that space, something shifts. Truth rises. The emotions she keeps contained everywhere else begin to seep through. The bathroom becomes a tiny, tiled threshold where she confronts what she doesn’t want to see, making it a strangely fitting gateway to a deeper form of confinement she hasn’t fully named. It is a private stage where transformation or breakdown has no witnesses but the reader.
The father’s illness echoes through these spaces too. There’s a tenderness in how Orhan depicts the physical realities of care: cleaning, managing, tending to a body that no longer obeys. It’s intimate and raw, but never sentimental.
The themes woven through the narrative, migration, rootlessness, the splintering weight of identity, feel grounded and honest. Orhan doesn’t tidy up the mess; he lets displacement and memory sit as they are, jagged and unresolved. That restraint is part of what gives the novel its staying power.
It isn’t perfect. At times the emotional distance is stronger than I wanted, and certain transitions feel slightly abrupt. But the atmosphere, the emotional intelligence, and the quiet symbolic echoes make the book linger long after the last page.
A layered, intimate novel that explores memory, loss, and belonging with remarkable subtlety. It understands that the homes we inhabit are never just structures; they are repositories for every version of ourselves we haven’t figured out how to let go of.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
4.5 stars
Thanks to NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This sounded very intriguing and I really wanted to read it.
It is a very bizarre premise, the idea of your newly renovated bathroom actually being a prison cell in another country. I wonder where Kenan got his idea from. But it is deeper than just a mistaken bathroom development.
The analogies are clear but not overused. The main female, Dilara, her husband her father are exiles, and the idea of being stuck and imprisoned in an unfamiliar environment is clear. Their worlds are shrinking, both their physical world and their own lives, shutting down, hiding in themselves, and they almost put themselves in their own personal cell, as it where. It also become a sort of escape for Dilara, somewhere she can be enclosed and have other people responsible for her for a change.
My nan died of Dementia in 2016 and it was a full-on year before that where she gradually and then rapidly deteriorated. And it's difficult to explain to other people who haven't experienced it just how dementia seeps into every aspect of a life - of that person and their family. But Kenan has done it very well here. He doesn't sensationalise it, but instead handles it with honesty and respect.
There aren't chapters as such, just a few parts. I love a short, snappy chapter, so I'm usually a grump when it comes to long books or ones split into parts. And I'm on the fence here. It is a relatively short book and so even having long sections didn't feel too long. Having said that, I'd have liked those parts to be split slightly into chapters because you read 20% of the book before you get a breather a the end of the part. But that's solely a personal opinion.
I can see this being very popular with the award boards. Which would normally mean I didn't like it, because I find books on prize lists a bit too literary and serious for my liking. And this does have that element but it's also a very powerful and enjoyable story with interesting characters.
I don't think I've read anything like this before, and yet there was something niggling at me that it reminded me of something. And it took a while but it reminded me of I Who Have Never Known Men. It's nothing like the plot or characters, but it just had a similar tone. And even though I wasn't a big fan of IWHNKM, I was a fan of this, it's original, it's weird, it's heartfelt, it's quick to read, and just really enjoyable.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This sounded very intriguing and I really wanted to read it.
It is a very bizarre premise, the idea of your newly renovated bathroom actually being a prison cell in another country. I wonder where Kenan got his idea from. But it is deeper than just a mistaken bathroom development.
The analogies are clear but not overused. The main female, Dilara, her husband her father are exiles, and the idea of being stuck and imprisoned in an unfamiliar environment is clear. Their worlds are shrinking, both their physical world and their own lives, shutting down, hiding in themselves, and they almost put themselves in their own personal cell, as it where. It also become a sort of escape for Dilara, somewhere she can be enclosed and have other people responsible for her for a change.
My nan died of Dementia in 2016 and it was a full-on year before that where she gradually and then rapidly deteriorated. And it's difficult to explain to other people who haven't experienced it just how dementia seeps into every aspect of a life - of that person and their family. But Kenan has done it very well here. He doesn't sensationalise it, but instead handles it with honesty and respect.
There aren't chapters as such, just a few parts. I love a short, snappy chapter, so I'm usually a grump when it comes to long books or ones split into parts. And I'm on the fence here. It is a relatively short book and so even having long sections didn't feel too long. Having said that, I'd have liked those parts to be split slightly into chapters because you read 20% of the book before you get a breather a the end of the part. But that's solely a personal opinion.
I can see this being very popular with the award boards. Which would normally mean I didn't like it, because I find books on prize lists a bit too literary and serious for my liking. And this does have that element but it's also a very powerful and enjoyable story with interesting characters.
I don't think I've read anything like this before, and yet there was something niggling at me that it reminded me of something. And it took a while but it reminded me of I Who Have Never Known Men. It's nothing like the plot or characters, but it just had a similar tone. And even though I wasn't a big fan of IWHNKM, I was a fan of this, it's original, it's weird, it's heartfelt, it's quick to read, and just really enjoyable.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
He had drifted off the earth into the dark chasm of dementia that erases a person so completely from being. In that moment, it felt like all of Istanbul was retreating, along with my father, into this abyss.
The Renovation is narrated by Dilara. She and her husband left Istanbul for exile in Italy, taking her father with them who was both under imminent threat of arrest from the Erdoğan regime, but also suffering from dementia.
Her father, in the late stages of the condition, has moved in with them, and Dilara's builder are coming to the end of some renovation work to add an extra bathroom - but as the novel opens, and Dilara inspects their work, she finds to her surprise:
I don’t know by what accident the builders had managed it, but instead of a remodeled bathroom attached to my bedroom, they had installed a prison cell.
And this is not just a replication of a prison cell, but rather the door to the bathroom is a portal to an actual cell in a newly built, and rapidly filling-up, Turkish women's prison for those arrested by the authorities for sedition and similar offences.
Dilara's husband flees, convinced the authorities will be able to enter their Italian property via the cell, and arrest them. But Dilara herself increasingly spends time in the cell, albeit one she is able to furnish to a rather different standard to her fellow prisoners, the cell acting as both a refuge from her father's condition - as his dementia worsens he becomes increasingly angry - but also a passport to memories of Istanbul that are fast slipping from her mind, her interactions with the inmates driven less by empathy on their predicament and more by nostalgia:
I really didn’t care about their misfortunes, which were like a hiccup in the heart. In truth I wanted to hear about their neighborhoods, their cities and villages. I wanted them to tell me about the new restaurants in Bebek and the old ones that had stayed afloat. Had they smuggled a piece of pistachio marzipan into the prison and to share, morsel by indulgent morsel, with me? Had their relatives, when they were allowed to visit the prison, brought a few packs of Turkish cigarettes, tea from Rize, a twist of simit?
This is a deceptively simple fable, Exit West meets Pamuk-lite, but with a powerful and at times moving portrayal of the experience of having a love one with dementia, and with some interesting links between exile, imprisonment and memory.
The Renovation is narrated by Dilara. She and her husband left Istanbul for exile in Italy, taking her father with them who was both under imminent threat of arrest from the Erdoğan regime, but also suffering from dementia.
Her father, in the late stages of the condition, has moved in with them, and Dilara's builder are coming to the end of some renovation work to add an extra bathroom - but as the novel opens, and Dilara inspects their work, she finds to her surprise:
I don’t know by what accident the builders had managed it, but instead of a remodeled bathroom attached to my bedroom, they had installed a prison cell.
And this is not just a replication of a prison cell, but rather the door to the bathroom is a portal to an actual cell in a newly built, and rapidly filling-up, Turkish women's prison for those arrested by the authorities for sedition and similar offences.
Dilara's husband flees, convinced the authorities will be able to enter their Italian property via the cell, and arrest them. But Dilara herself increasingly spends time in the cell, albeit one she is able to furnish to a rather different standard to her fellow prisoners, the cell acting as both a refuge from her father's condition - as his dementia worsens he becomes increasingly angry - but also a passport to memories of Istanbul that are fast slipping from her mind, her interactions with the inmates driven less by empathy on their predicament and more by nostalgia:
I really didn’t care about their misfortunes, which were like a hiccup in the heart. In truth I wanted to hear about their neighborhoods, their cities and villages. I wanted them to tell me about the new restaurants in Bebek and the old ones that had stayed afloat. Had they smuggled a piece of pistachio marzipan into the prison and to share, morsel by indulgent morsel, with me? Had their relatives, when they were allowed to visit the prison, brought a few packs of Turkish cigarettes, tea from Rize, a twist of simit?
This is a deceptively simple fable, Exit West meets Pamuk-lite, but with a powerful and at times moving portrayal of the experience of having a love one with dementia, and with some interesting links between exile, imprisonment and memory.
March 3, 2026
I'm torn about this book. At its centre is Dilara, a middle-aged woman of Turkish origin living in Italy, having left her home several years before the events of the novel due to the deteriorating human-rights situation. The story begins when she discovers that a recent renovation in her small flat has not produced the new bathroom she expected, but instead an entry point into a cell in a newly built prison somewhere in Türkiye — the book’s only surreal element. As Dilara navigates an absent husband, her ailing cohabiting father (Alzheimer’s), a sense of otherness in her adopted country, and a deep mix of concern and nostalgia for her homeland, her identity begins to fracture. She struggles to hold on to who she is, ultimately making unexpected choices in order to survive.
The book is deeply allegorical: Dilara’s life in Italy is free in the literal sense but constrained and prison-like in experience — the inverse of the Turkish prison cell; the deterioration of her father’s health and her relationship mirrors the decline of her homeland and her perception of it; and Dilara’s life becomes a microcosm of the hope some Turkish liberals still hold for their country’s future.
I remain of two minds about the novel. Reading it was not always pleasant, and I often felt the idea was stronger than the execution. The tone could be jarring, and the magical-realism elements occasionally felt overwrought. That said, the book leaves a mark and lingers in the mind. With distance, the experience becomes more memorable, as the broad thematic strokes ultimately prove more powerful than the details that compose them.
I highly recommend it to any immigrant living outside their home country due to circumstances beyond their control. It will also be of interest to readers wanting to understand more about Türkiye, the erosion of civil liberties there, and how such changes affect ordinary people.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an early copy in return for an honest review.
The book is deeply allegorical: Dilara’s life in Italy is free in the literal sense but constrained and prison-like in experience — the inverse of the Turkish prison cell; the deterioration of her father’s health and her relationship mirrors the decline of her homeland and her perception of it; and Dilara’s life becomes a microcosm of the hope some Turkish liberals still hold for their country’s future.
I remain of two minds about the novel. Reading it was not always pleasant, and I often felt the idea was stronger than the execution. The tone could be jarring, and the magical-realism elements occasionally felt overwrought. That said, the book leaves a mark and lingers in the mind. With distance, the experience becomes more memorable, as the broad thematic strokes ultimately prove more powerful than the details that compose them.
I highly recommend it to any immigrant living outside their home country due to circumstances beyond their control. It will also be of interest to readers wanting to understand more about Türkiye, the erosion of civil liberties there, and how such changes affect ordinary people.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an early copy in return for an honest review.
May 14, 2026
What would it mean to find comfort in a prison cell in a modern city? The Renovation was a surprisingly haunting read that blends psychological distress with subtle magical realism. The story follows Dilara, a woman who discovers that her bathroom has mysteriously been remodeled into a prison cell while she simultaneously struggles with caring for her father, who has dementia. As the novel progresses, it becomes increasingly clear how emotionally isolated she is - unsupported not only by her distant family, but also by her husband. What makes the novel particularly compelling is how understandable Dilara’s emotional exhaustion becomes. In the midst of overwhelming caregiving responsibilities, even the prison cell begins to represent a strange sense of comfort and escape.
“It didn’t make sense to me, perhaps because I had my senses still, and I needed to lose them all to understand my father.”This quote particularly stayed with me because it captures the painful disconnect between Dilara and her father, as well as the emotional toll of trying to care for someone whose reality is slowly slipping away.
By the end of the novel, we see how accumulated exhaustion and emotional isolation shape Dilara’s decisions. Rather than portraying caregiving in simplistic terms, the book explores how circumstances, burnout, and lack of support can gradually push someone toward choices they never imagined themselves making.
I also appreciated how Dilara’s identity as a migrant further deepens her sense of loneliness and instability throughout the story. One minor issue I had with the novel was that the timeline occasionally felt slightly disorienting, particularly during transitions between emotional states and events. While this may have been intentional to reflect Dilara’s mental exhaustion, there were moments where I found myself needing to pause and piece together the chronology.
Overall, I would recommend this to readers looking for a realistic portrayal of caregiving, burnout, and emotional survival, with a subtle layer of surrealism woven throughout.
“It didn’t make sense to me, perhaps because I had my senses still, and I needed to lose them all to understand my father.”This quote particularly stayed with me because it captures the painful disconnect between Dilara and her father, as well as the emotional toll of trying to care for someone whose reality is slowly slipping away.
By the end of the novel, we see how accumulated exhaustion and emotional isolation shape Dilara’s decisions. Rather than portraying caregiving in simplistic terms, the book explores how circumstances, burnout, and lack of support can gradually push someone toward choices they never imagined themselves making.
I also appreciated how Dilara’s identity as a migrant further deepens her sense of loneliness and instability throughout the story. One minor issue I had with the novel was that the timeline occasionally felt slightly disorienting, particularly during transitions between emotional states and events. While this may have been intentional to reflect Dilara’s mental exhaustion, there were moments where I found myself needing to pause and piece together the chronology.
Overall, I would recommend this to readers looking for a realistic portrayal of caregiving, burnout, and emotional survival, with a subtle layer of surrealism woven throughout.
February 26, 2026
Reading my first book of 2026 which is due for publication later this year was an exciting experience. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advance copy of this scintillating debut.
The renovation is a deeply moving book set in a room in London that connects the protagonist to her past. Dilara lives with her husband and her father, both political exiles from Turkey. She renovates her home with a new bathroom to accommodate her ailing father, who is losing himself to dementia every day. But when the structure is unveiled, Dilara is shocked to find a prison cell in place of a bathroom. It is not just any prison cell, but the one she remembers very well from Istanbul. What is this piece of her homeland doing in her new home? Why can't her history in Turkey be left behind, and why does it keep following her around? Dilara must find out before it's too late.
Firstly, this debut work of fiction is an incredible piece of literature, seamlessly combining history, geopolitics, family dynamics and mental health. This felt very very close to me as Dilara explores and recollects her troubled relationship with her parents. This book reminded me of Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, Martyr by Kaveh Akbar and Crying in H Mart, but better (remember, I didn't particularly enjoy the last two). There is satire, comedy, tragedy, history, and a bit of everything for everyone, without feeling clumsy or overdone. One of the vulnerable yet touching aspects of the book is how it addresses Dilara’s choice to be childfree and the way the world views that decision.
At times, it does get redundant and occasionally beats around the bush, but that's the only thing I could nitpick from this book as a drawback. Expect to be swept away in a whirlwind of emotions as you navigate the rest of the book. And keep an eye out, this book is set to release in March 2026. Plan your TBR accordingly and don't miss it.
March 30, 2026
Kenan Orhan’s debut novel, ‘The Renovation’, follows the life of Dilara, who lives in Italy after leaving Turkey around the time of the 2013 Gezi Park protests. She is a political exile. Her father suffers from Alzheimer’s, and she is his caregiver. The ‘renovation’ of the title is the remodelled bathroom that takes on the shape and feel of a Turkish prison cell. In surreal moments, she connects to her home country of Turkey through this makeshift prison cell. She finds solace away from her life as a carer.
As anyone who has ever cared for a sick or dying loved one knows, it can be a physically and emotionally exhausting experience. The loved one goes through so much trauma, but the caregiver also undergoes immense stress. You want the loved one to survive, but a part of you also wants the suffering to end. You see the torture that the person endures on a daily basis. It’s brutal especially for someone like Dilara’s father who suffers from Alzheimer’s.
Orhan combines Dilara’s yearning for her country of origin (Turkey) with her demanding job as a caretaker and daughter. Even though she fled from Turkey, she finds comfort in the familiar. Now that she is losing her dad to Alzheimer’s, she needs to return to her history. In a very basic way, political exiles have to create their own identities when they enter a new country. They do not have a past or traditions with this country; they have no friends, family, or lifelong memories. They are shadows of their former selves until they are able to make connections and build up the new version of themselves.
Kenan Orhan’s ‘The Renovation’ is an intriguing and often challenging look at how the past never leaves our bodies and consciousness. We can rarely, if ever escape our histories, and that can be for good or bad. In a time when there’s so much vitriol toward immigrants and exiles, Orhan writes with empathy and nuance. It’s a short but powerful book.
As anyone who has ever cared for a sick or dying loved one knows, it can be a physically and emotionally exhausting experience. The loved one goes through so much trauma, but the caregiver also undergoes immense stress. You want the loved one to survive, but a part of you also wants the suffering to end. You see the torture that the person endures on a daily basis. It’s brutal especially for someone like Dilara’s father who suffers from Alzheimer’s.
Orhan combines Dilara’s yearning for her country of origin (Turkey) with her demanding job as a caretaker and daughter. Even though she fled from Turkey, she finds comfort in the familiar. Now that she is losing her dad to Alzheimer’s, she needs to return to her history. In a very basic way, political exiles have to create their own identities when they enter a new country. They do not have a past or traditions with this country; they have no friends, family, or lifelong memories. They are shadows of their former selves until they are able to make connections and build up the new version of themselves.
Kenan Orhan’s ‘The Renovation’ is an intriguing and often challenging look at how the past never leaves our bodies and consciousness. We can rarely, if ever escape our histories, and that can be for good or bad. In a time when there’s so much vitriol toward immigrants and exiles, Orhan writes with empathy and nuance. It’s a short but powerful book.
March 7, 2026
3.5/5
'Turkey, this country that had obsessed my dreas and left me hollowed out at the foot of its immense mesmerism, was only a place of the past. As with childhood's magic frontiers, there was no way to travel back once you had left." - Kenan Orhan
Ironically, even though this book is classified as 'magical realism', it feels more like reality slapped me in the face. This story discussed a lot of personal and timely topics, and does it in a way that feels very holistic and natural as part of our main character (Dilara)'s inner struggles and difficult circumstances.
From parental loss to becoming a political refugee, isolation is the key theme in this story, and as a reader, you can really sympathise with our main character through her stream of consciousness. You can feel our main character devolving more and more as the story progresses, especially as she reflects on the last decade of her life and struggles to come to terms with her circumstances and connection to Turkey, her homeland.
The ending was interesting - it felt like she was more wanting to escape her difficult life in Italy/the mental turmoil of her physical and political isolation, than returning home, even if it meant imprisonment. I guess at least there, she feels a sense of belonging.
Dilara wasn’t a particularly proactive main character, but it was sad to see how she talks about the election and wishing the people of Turkey would ‘wake up’ and feel less apathy towards their own country, but in the end, she surrenders and gives up hope as well. The parts about her dad felt really raw and honest as well - I imagine this really is how caring for a person with Alzheimers is like, and it was really eye-opening to read.
Thank you @netgalley and @HamishHamilton for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
'Turkey, this country that had obsessed my dreas and left me hollowed out at the foot of its immense mesmerism, was only a place of the past. As with childhood's magic frontiers, there was no way to travel back once you had left." - Kenan Orhan
Ironically, even though this book is classified as 'magical realism', it feels more like reality slapped me in the face. This story discussed a lot of personal and timely topics, and does it in a way that feels very holistic and natural as part of our main character (Dilara)'s inner struggles and difficult circumstances.
From parental loss to becoming a political refugee, isolation is the key theme in this story, and as a reader, you can really sympathise with our main character through her stream of consciousness. You can feel our main character devolving more and more as the story progresses, especially as she reflects on the last decade of her life and struggles to come to terms with her circumstances and connection to Turkey, her homeland.
The ending was interesting - it felt like she was more wanting to escape her difficult life in Italy/the mental turmoil of her physical and political isolation, than returning home, even if it meant imprisonment. I guess at least there, she feels a sense of belonging.
Dilara wasn’t a particularly proactive main character, but it was sad to see how she talks about the election and wishing the people of Turkey would ‘wake up’ and feel less apathy towards their own country, but in the end, she surrenders and gives up hope as well. The parts about her dad felt really raw and honest as well - I imagine this really is how caring for a person with Alzheimers is like, and it was really eye-opening to read.
Thank you @netgalley and @HamishHamilton for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
February 11, 2026
I was at a silent book club event, explaining how strange this book was, and was asked how I thought I would end up rating it. Good question and one I am still second-guessing, even as I post this.
It was curious mix of the seriousness of caring for a father with Alzheimers, the politics of fleeing from a homeland and losing a sense of self, the whimsy of a bathroom renovation becoming a portal, the horror that the portal leads to a prison cell, yet the nonchalance to continue living with and actually using said portal. The only way to sum it ups is that this book was just a series of WTF? for me. And the ending was the biggest WTF!
As a reader of fantasy and sci-fi, I am no stranger to unrealistic plot lines. But this one required me to suspend belief a bit too much. I understand that the author is trying to convey something metaphorically, but none of the reactions were plausible in the least. Going through a portal to escape a dreary life? Sure, plausible. Knowing the portal leads to a prison cell? Nope, not eve if there was a sexy winged fae in there with me (IYKYK).
And don't get me started on the non-linear timeline, which was hard to follow.
What did I like about it? I loved the unapologetic depiction of the realities of caring for a close family member with Alzheimers, the thoughts and anger and guilt. The contrast between sadness to gradually lose a loved one and the exhaustion of having to deal with it. My father had Alzheimers and my situation wasn't even this bad, but I could relate to many of the thoughts and feelings Dilara had.
Overall, I think this will appeal to readers of literary fiction, even if I might not have been able to appreciate it fully.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing an eARC for review.
It was curious mix of the seriousness of caring for a father with Alzheimers, the politics of fleeing from a homeland and losing a sense of self, the whimsy of a bathroom renovation becoming a portal, the horror that the portal leads to a prison cell, yet the nonchalance to continue living with and actually using said portal. The only way to sum it ups is that this book was just a series of WTF? for me. And the ending was the biggest WTF!
As a reader of fantasy and sci-fi, I am no stranger to unrealistic plot lines. But this one required me to suspend belief a bit too much. I understand that the author is trying to convey something metaphorically, but none of the reactions were plausible in the least. Going through a portal to escape a dreary life? Sure, plausible. Knowing the portal leads to a prison cell? Nope, not eve if there was a sexy winged fae in there with me (IYKYK).
And don't get me started on the non-linear timeline, which was hard to follow.
What did I like about it? I loved the unapologetic depiction of the realities of caring for a close family member with Alzheimers, the thoughts and anger and guilt. The contrast between sadness to gradually lose a loved one and the exhaustion of having to deal with it. My father had Alzheimers and my situation wasn't even this bad, but I could relate to many of the thoughts and feelings Dilara had.
Overall, I think this will appeal to readers of literary fiction, even if I might not have been able to appreciate it fully.
Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for providing an eARC for review.
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