Booker Prize 2026 · Audiobook Review
Written by Kenan Orhan · Narrated by Nadia Albina
A sharply observed novel about family, inheritance and the unsettling business of renovating a house — and a life.
The Story
Dilara is a Turkish exile living in Italy, caring for her father, who has dementia. When builders renovate her apartment, they install a Turkish prison cell where the bathroom should be. Stranger still, the cell seems somehow connected to a real prison in Istanbul.
What begins as an absurd premise becomes a surprisingly funny and thought-provoking exploration of imprisonment, exile, dementia, family and memory. I loved the way Orhan manages to deal with some very serious material without losing the comedy. My one reservation was the jumping timeline, which occasionally left me scrambling to work out where — and when — we were.
The Narrator
Nadia Albina is superb. She handles the novel’s rapid shifts between distressing events and outright absurdity without ever overplaying either. The comedy is allowed to emerge naturally from the writing, while the serious material is given just the right amount of weight. I found her narration remarkably easy to listen to — comforting, even — which is quite an achievement for a book dealing with imprisonment, exile and dementia.
The Waffleometer
There’s plenty going on here, but thankfully Orhan doesn’t spend pages explaining what it all means. The story occasionally gets tangled up in its shifting timelines, but the writing is generally sharp, funny and purposeful. A little waffle, but nothing requiring a lie down.
The Scores
Story & Writing: 4/5
Narration: 4.5/5
Waffleometer: 2/5
The Verdict
I finished The Renovation with all sorts of thoughts going through my head: Turkey, exile, imprisonment, dementia, family — and, rather unexpectedly, quite a lot of laughter. I wasn’t expecting that combination to work, but it does. There were moments when I lost track of the timeline, but that feels like a relatively small complaint against a novel that manages to be funny, moving, unsettling and genuinely thought-provoking. I think The Renovation is an astonishing achievement, and I’m very glad I listened to it.