About...

Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. She spent her teenage years in Madrid before returning to her family’s native Turkey. Though deeply attached to the city of Istanbul, which plays an important part in her fiction, she has also lived in numerous other cities and states, including Cologne, Germany; Amman, Jordan; and Boston, Michigan, and Arizona. As a result, a sense of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism has consistently characterized both her life and her work.

Shafak has published seven books, six of which are novels. Her most recent novel, THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL, is her second book written in English and will be released by Viking in January 2007. The book has recently been the subject of an interrogation and trial under Article 301 in Turkey, which punishes any persons “denigrating Turkishness” with up to three years of imprisonment. Shafak’s trial awakened wide interest and support both in Turkey and in the international arena. She was finally acquitted of charges in September 2006. Shafak’s choice to write in English has also received bitter criticism from Turkish nationalists, but today she continues to write in both Turkish and English.

In addition to writing fiction, Shafak is also a political scientist and assistant professor, having graduated from the program in International Relations at Middle East Technical University. She holds a Masters degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and a Ph.D. in Political Science. Focusing mainly in contemporary Western political thought, with a supplementary interest in Middle Eastern studies, Shafak’s scholarship has been nurtured by an interdisciplinary and gender-conscious re-reading of the literature on the Middle East and West, Islam, and modernity. Her master’s thesis on Islam, women, and mysticism received an award from the Social Scientists Institute.

Shafak has taught at various universities around the world, including İstanbul Bilgi University, the University of Michigan, the University of Arizona, and Istanbul Bahcesehir University. Her courses have explored the intersections between Turkish history, women’s studies, and literature, including classes such as “Ottoman History from the Margins,” “Turkey and Cultural Identities, “Women and Writing,” “Sexualities and Gender in the Muslim World,” “Exile, Literature, and Imagination,” and “The Politics of Memory.”

An outspoken intellectual and activist, Shafak continues to write for various daily and monthly publications in Turkey. She has also contributed to various papers in Europe, and the United States,  including The Guardian, Le Monde, Berliner Zeitung, Dutch Handelsbladt, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Time Magazine, and has recently been featured in the US on National Public Radio.
 

Awards and Special Recognition...

THE FLEA PALACE
Short-listed for UK 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize