Elif Shafak (, ; née Bilgin; born 25 October 1971) is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist and activist.
Shafak writes in Turkish and English, and has published 19 works. She is best known for her novels, which include The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, Three Daughters of Eve and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Her books have been translated into 55 languages and been nominated for several literary awards. Described by the Financial Times as "Turkey's leading female novelist", several of her works have been bestsellers in Turkey and internationally.
Her works have prominently featured the city of Istanbul, and dealt with themes of Eastern and Western culture, roles of women in society, and human rights issues. Certain politically challenging topics addressed in her novels, such as child abuse and the Armenian genocide, have led to legal action from authorities in Turkey that prompted her to emigrate to the United Kingdom.
Shafak has a PhD in political science. An essayist and contributor to several media outlets, Shafak has advocated for women's rights, minority rights, and freedom of speech.
Early life and education
Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, to Nuri Bilgin, a philosopher, 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 Ph.D. 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, she held the Weidenfeld Visiting Professorship in Comparative European Literature at St Anne's College, University of Oxford, for the 2017–2018 academic year, where she is an honorary fellow.
Career
Shafak has published nineteen 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 Independent Best Foreign Fiction in 2005.
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. In France, it 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.