Narrative Structure and Postmortem Consciousness in Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World: An Existentialist Perspective
Abstract
The current paper examines how Elif Shafak's 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019) transforms the postmortem consciousness of the novel's protagonist, Tequila Leila, into a place of existential affirmation rather than despair. Leila, a murdered sex worker, maintains neural activity for exactly 10 minutes and 38 seconds after clinical death, during which fragmented sensory memories reconstruct her violated life in nonlinear waves. While his body lies in the belly of Istanbul, his dying mind performs a radical act: it says "yes" to every moment attack, exile, prostitution, friendship without resentment. The study is qualitative; data is derived through close reading of the primary text, supported by secondary sources from existentialism, narratives, and hermeneutics (postmortem consciousness). Leila's 10:38-minute journey of self-mastery is explored through a three-pronged theoretical (tri-theoretic) framework: a) Friedrich Nietzsche's existentialism (eternal recurrence, amor fati, will to power, non-resentment) as the content of consciousness each memory wave is a test of recurrence; b) Gerard Genette's narratives (anachrony, iterative summary, prolepsis, internal focalization, pause) as the form that enacts repetition the boomerang of self- blame "For years to come," (Shafak, 2019, p. 48) and the tangled web of time (Shafak, 2019, p. 56); c) Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics (Mimesis₁–₃) as moral consequence the previously perceived trauma (M₁) is organized in death (M₂): “She, too, blamed herself,” (Shafak, 2019, p.99) and reorganized for the reader (M₃): “Free at last,” (Shafak, 2019, p. 30). The results show that Tequila Leila transforms herself not in life but in the space between heart and mind, transforming the moment that broke the child into the story that liberates the woman. The corpse becomes the Übermensch, the water family becomes the communal master, and the Bosphorus becomes the salt that preserves the "yes." This study redefines postmortem consciousness as a narrative act of existential mastery, offering a new lens for foundational texts in literature, philosophy, and trauma studies.
Keywords: Postmortem Consciousness, Nietszhean Affirmation, Existentialism, Eternal Recurrence, Genettian Anachrony, Ricoeurian Mimesis, Narrative Self-overcoming, Übermensch
