Told from four different perspectives At the Breakfast Table is a story of hidden histories
and family secrets from the author of The Silence of Scheherazade. Buyukada Turkey 2017. In
the glow of a late summer morning family gather for the 100th birthday of the famous artist
Shirin Saka. It ought to be a time of fond reminiscence looking back on a long and fruitful
artistic career on memories spanning almost a century. But the deep past is something Shirin
has spent a lifetime trying to conceal. Her grandchildren Nur and Fikret and great-grandchild
Celine do not know what she's hiding though they are intimately aware of the secret's
psychological consequences. The siblings invite family friend and investigative journalist
Burak along to interview Shirin - in celebration of her centenary and also in the hope of
persuading her to open up. Eventually Shirin begins to express her pain the only way she knows
how. She paints a story onto her dining room wall revealing a history wiped from public
consciousness and generations of her family's history. 'Fiercely intelligent finely textured
and achingly beautiful.' Elif Shafak
