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The Author
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The Books
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Elif Shafak entire backlist as well as the novels written in English
are available from Marly Rusoff and Associates, Inc. (Some translation
rights might not be available)
SIYAH SUT
(Black Milk - nonfiction)
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Elif Shafak's BLACK MILK is
a personal account of the depression,
identity crises and recovery that followed
the birth of her daughter in Istanbul,
offering an imaginative exploration of her
journey as a writer dealing with the
cultural misunderstandings of both
motherhood and womanhood in a patriarchal
world. |
BIT PALAS
(The Flea Palace)
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The fourth novel, THE FLEA
PALACE (9th edition), published in
March 2003, a humorously narrated story of
an apartment building where all the
characters and stories are interlaced to
develop the theme of "the seen and
the unseen degradation" --moral,
physical, social as well as cultural-- in
the heart of the aging city of Istanbul.
In three months time, the book sold over
15 000 copies and for more than nine weeks
it was a national best seller.
This novel has been translated to English. |
MAHREM
(Hide-and-Seek)
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Titled MAHREM
(Hide-and-Seek) (8th edition), the third
novel is about the interventionist gaze of
the Muslim/Jalal God, of the society, as
well as of the male lover. The novel
traces the steps of the runaway of the
female body that must search for its
elusive autonomy while being encroached
upon by the gazes of others. With an
intricate plot and language, the novel
travels from Siberia in 17th century to
France in 19th century and the story finds
its links back to the life of a bulimic
woman and to her childhood and a sexual
abuse in 1980s Turkey, Istanbul. Going
through multiple printings, MAHREM
received the Turkish Novel Award.
This
novel has been translated to English. |
SEHRIN
AYNALARY (The Mirrors of the City)
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The second novel, SEHRIN
AYNALARI (7th edition), is
about the lives of conversos expelled from
Spain, and especially, about one
particular young Sephardic Jew -gifted
with wit, fury and cynicism- who moves to
17th century Ottoman Empire. By bringing
together Jewish and Islamic characters in
Istanbul, the novel opens up questions on
estrangement and deterritorialization. |
PINHAN (The
Sufi)
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PINHAN, (8th
edition), which Elif Shafak published at
age 27, was awarded the Rumi Prize--a
recognition given to best works in
mystical/transcendental literature. The
novel tells the story of a hermaphrodite
mystic--a little known but revered
tradition--inside the Sufi orders. The
body with both sexual organs is
astonishingly linked to the path of the
dialectics of life in the outer order. As
in Shafak's other works, Pinhan explores
and challenges the question of identity at
the nexus of physical and metaphysical
definitions. |
MED-CEZIR
(Ebb and Tide)
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A collection of
nonfiction essays revolving around
various themes, mainly multiculturalism,
East & West, Muslim women, American women,
sexuality, identity politics, and exile,
belonging and literature… |
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Elif Shafak Fiction
written
in English
THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL
from Viking/Penguin, January 10, 2007
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| In THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL, Turkish author Elif Shafak confronts her
country’s violent past in a vivid and colorful tale about the tangled
history of two families – one Turkish and one Armenian American.... |
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THE
SAINT OF INCIPIENT INSANITIES from
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, October 1,
2004
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| THE SAINT OF INCIPIENT INSANITIES. is
Elif Shafak's first book written in English
and is set on a college campus in New England. It features a cast of
foreign students trying to make a place for themselves in America as well
as a number of young Americans who feel very much strangers in their own
land... |
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