Elif Shafak

Early life and education

Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, to Nuri Bilgin, a professor of Social Psychology, and Şafak Atayman, who later became a diplomat. After her parents separated, Shafak returned to Ankara, Turkey, where she was raised by her mother and maternal grandmother. She says that growing up in a dysfunctional family was difficult, but that growing up in a non-patriarchal environment had a beneficial impact on her. Having grown up without her father, she met her half-brothers for the first time when she was in her mid-twenties.

Shafak added her mother's first name, Turkish for "dawn", to her own when constructing her pen name at the age of eighteen. Shafak spent her teenage years in Madrid, Jordan and Germany.

Shafak studied an undergraduate degree in international relations at Middle East Technical University, and earned a master's degree in women's studies. She holds a PhD in political science. She has taught at universities in Turkey. Later emigrating to the United States, she was a fellow at Mount Holyoke College, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, and was a tenured professor at the University of Arizona in Near Eastern studies.

In the UK, for the 2017–2018 academic year, she held the Weidenfeld Visiting Professorship in Comparative European Literature at St Anne's College, University of Oxford, where she is an honorary fellow. The governing body of Hertford College, Oxford, elected her as a visiting fellow in 2024.

Career

Shafak has published 21 books, fiction and nonfiction.

Fiction

Shafak's first novel, Pinhan, was awarded the Rumi Prize in 1998, a Turkish literary prize.

Shafak's 1999 novel Mahrem (The Gaze) was awarded "Best Novel" by the Turkish Authors' Association in 2000.

Her next novel, Bit Palas (The Flea Palace, 2002), was shortlisted for The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2005. After 22 years, in January 2024 Shafak was found guilty of plagiarism in her book Bit Palas. However, 130 prominent figures from the literary world came together to issue a statement emphasising that this was not a real case. Both Shafak and her publisher in Turkey have appealed the decision.

Shafak released her first novel in English, The Saint of Incipient Insanities, in 2004.

Her second novel in English, The Bastard of Istanbul, was long-listed for the Orange Prize. It addresses the Armenian genocide, which is denied by the Turkish government. Shafak was prosecuted in July 2006 on charges of "insulting Turkishness" (Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code) for discussing the genocide in the novel. Had she been convicted, she would have faced a maximum prison sentence of three years. The Guardian commented that The Bastard of Istanbul may be the first Turkish novel to address the genocide. She was acquitted of these charges in September 2006 at the prosecutor's request.

Shafak's novel The Forty Rules of Love (Aşk in Turkish) became a bestseller in Turkey upon its release; it sold more than 200,000 copies by 2009, surpassing a previous record of 120,000 copies set by Orhan Pamuk's The New Life (1994). In France, Shafak's novel was awarded a Prix ALEF* – Mention Spéciale Littérature Etrangère. It was also nominated for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2019, it was listed by the BBC as one of the 100 "most inspiring" novels and one of the "100 novels that shaped our world".

Her 2012 novel Honour, which focuses on an honour killing, was nominated for the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize and 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction, followed by The Architect's Apprentice, a historical fiction novel about a fictional apprentice to Mimar Sinan, in 2014.

Shafak's novel Three Daughters of Eve (2017), set in Istanbul and Oxford from the 1980s to the present day, was chosen by London Mayor Sadiq Khan as his favourite book of the year. American writer Siri Hustvedt also praised the book. The book explores themes of secular versus orthodox religious practice, conservative versus liberal politics and modern Turkish attitudes towards these .

Following Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Sjon, Shafak was selected as the 2017 writer for the Future Library project. Her work The Last Taboo is the fourth part of a collection of 100 literary works that will not be published until 2114.

Shafak's 2019 novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, revolving around the life of an Istanbul sex worker, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2019, Shafak was investigated by Turkish prosecutors for addressing child abuse and sexual violence in her fiction writing.

Shafak released her twelfth novel The Island of Missing Trees in 2021.

Her 2024 novel is There are Rivers in the Sky, a split-timeline novel about water, that reaches from the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal to a hydrologist in present-day London and addresses the persecution, and 2014 massacre, of the Yazidi.

Non-fiction

Shafak's non-fiction essays in Turkish have been collected in four books: Med-Cezir (2005), Firarperest (2010), Şemspare (2012) and Sanma ki Yalnızsın (2017).

In 2020, Shafak published How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division.

In the media

Shafak has written for Time, The Guardian, La Repubblica, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Der Spiegel and New Statesman.

Shafak has been a panellist or commentator on BBC World, Euronews and Al Jazeera English.

Until 2009, when she transferred to Habertürk, Shafak was a writer for the newspaper Zaman, which was known for its affiliation with Fethullah Gülen.

In July 2017, Elif Shafak was chosen as a "castaway" on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

Shafak has been a TEDGlobal speaker three times.

Themes

Istanbul

Istanbul has been prominent in Shafak's writing. She depicts the city as a melting pot of different cultures and various contradictions. Shafak has remarked: "Istanbul makes one comprehend, perhaps not intellectually but intuitively, that East and West are ultimately imaginary concepts, and can thereby be de-imagined and re-imagined." In the same essay written for Time magazine Shafak says: "East and West is no water and oil. They do mix. And in a city like Istanbul they mix intensely, incessantly, amazingly." The New York Times Book Review said of Shafak, "she has a particular genius for depicting backstreet Istanbul, where the myriad cultures of the Ottoman Empire are still in tangled evidence on every family tree."

In a piece she wrote for the BBC, Shafak said, "Istanbul is like a huge, colourful Matrushka – you open it and find another doll inside. You open that, only to see a new doll nesting. It is a hall of mirrors where nothing is quite what it seems. One should be cautious when using categories to talk about Istanbul. If there is one thing the city doesn't like, it is clichés."

Eastern and Western cultures

Shafak blends Eastern and Western ways of storytelling, and draws on oral and written culture. In The Washington Post, Ron Charles Wrote: "Shafak speaks in a multivalent voice that captures the roiling tides of diverse cultures." Mysticism and specifically Sufism has also been a theme in her work, particularly in The Forty Rules of Love.

Feminism

A feminist and advocate for gender equality, Shafak's writing has addressed numerous feminist issues and the role of women in society. Examples include motherhood and violence against women. In an interview with William Skidelsky for The Guardian, she said: "In Turkey, men write and women read. I want to see this change."

Human rights

Shafak's novels have explored human rights issues, particularly those in Turkey. She has said: "What literature tries to do is to re-humanize people who have been dehumanized ... People whose voices we never hear. That's a big part of my work". Specific topics have included persecution of Yazidis, the Armenian genocide and the treatment of various minorities in Turkey.

Views

Freedom of speech

Shafak is an advocate for freedom of expression. While taking part in the Free Speech Debate, she commented: "I am more interested in showing the things we have in common as fellow human beings, sharing the same planet and ultimately, the same sorrows and joys rather than adding yet another brick in the imaginary walls erected between cultures/religions/ethnicities."

Political views

Shafak has been critical of the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, describing his tenure as leading to increased authoritarianism in Turkey. She signed an open letter in protest against Turkey's Twitter ban in 2014, commenting: "the very core of democracy ... is lacking in today's Turkey".

Shafak has spoken and written about various global political trends. In the 2010s, she drew parallels between Turkish political history and political developments in Europe and the United States. Writing in The New Yorker in 2016, she said "Wave after wave of nationalism, isolationism, and tribalism have hit the shores of countries across Europe, and they have reached the United States. Jingoism and xenophobia are on the rise. It is an Age of Angst—and it is a short step from angst to anger and from anger to aggression."

Shafak signed an open letter in protest against Russian persecution of homosexuals and blasphemy laws before Sochi 2014.

Personal life

Shafak had lived in Istanbul, and in the United States before moving to the UK. Shafak has lived in London since 2013, but speaks of "carrying Istanbul in her soul". As of 2019, Shafak had been in self-imposed exile from Turkey due to fear of prosecution.

Shafak is married to the Turkish journalist Eyüp Can Sağlık, a former editor of the liberal newspaper Radikal, with whom she has a daughter and a son. In 2017, Shafak came out as bisexual.

Following the birth of her daughter in 2006, Shafak suffered from postnatal depression, a period she addressed in her memoir Black Milk.

Awards and recognition

Book awards

• 1998: Pinhan, The Great Rumi Award, Turkey.
• 2000: The Gaze, Union of Turkish Writers' Best Novel Prize. and
• 2005: The Flea Palace, shortlisted for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, United Kingdom.
• 2011: Soufi, mon amour (Phébus, 2011), Prix ALEF – Mention Spéciale Littérature Etrangère.
• 2012: The Forty Rules of Love, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
• 2013: Crime d'honneur (Phébus, 2013), Prix Relay des voyageurs.
• 2014: Honour, second place for the Prix Escapade, France.
• 2015: The Architect's Apprentice, shortlisted for RSL Ondaatje Prize.
• 2019: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
• 2020: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, shortlisted for Ondaatje Prize.
• 2021: The Island of Missing Trees, shortlisted for the Costa Book Award.
• 2021: Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize.
• 2011: The Island of Missing Trees, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.
• 2022: The Island of Missing Trees, shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.
• 2023: The Island of Missing Trees, shortlisted for the British Book Awards.
• 2025: There Are Rivers in The Sky, Fiction with a Sense of Place Award at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.
• 2025: There Are Rivers in The Sky, Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize from the Society of Authors.
• 2025: There Are Rivers in The Sky, Prix Femina Etranger finalist.

Other recognition

• Maria Grazia Cutuli Award – International Journalism Prize, Italy 2006.
• Turkish Journalists and Writers Foundation "The Art of Coexistence Award, 2009".
• Marka Conference 2010 Award.
• Women To Watch Award, Mediacat & Advertising Age, March 2014.
• Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2015: Global Empowerment Award.
• 2016 GTF Awards for Excellence in Promoting Gender Equality.
• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL), 2019.
• BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women, 2021.
• British Academy President's Medal, 2024.
• Speaking at the launch of the Frankfurt International Book Fair, 2024.

Bibliography

NOTE: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd was bought out by Viking in 2011.

Notes

References

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