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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[4][5] that prompted her to emigrate to the United Kingdom.
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.[8] 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.[9]
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.[9]
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,[14] where she is an honorary fellow.[15] Hertford College’s Governing Body elected her as a Visiting Fellow in 2024. [16]
Her next novel, Bit Palas (The Flea Palace, 2002), was shortlisted for Independent Best Foreign Fiction in 2005.[20][21] After 22 years, in January 2024 Shafak was found guilty of plagiarism in her book Bit Palas.[22] However, 130 prominent figures from the literary world came together to issue a statement emphasising that this was not a real case.[23] Both Shafak and her publisher in Turkey have appealed the decision of the first court.[24][needs update]
Shafak released her first novel in English, The Saint of Incipient Insanities, in 2004.[9]
Shafak's novel The Forty Rules of Love (Aşk in Turkish) became a bestseller in Turkey upon its release;[28] 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.[29] In France, it was awarded a Prix ALEF* – Mention Spéciale Littérature Etrangère.[30] It was also nominated for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.[31] In 2019, it was listed by the BBC as one of the 100 "most inspiring" novels[32] and one of the "100 novels that shaped our world".[33]
Her novel Three Daughters of Eve (2017), set in Istanbul and Oxford from the 1980s to the present day,[38] was chosen by London Mayor Sadiq Khan as his favourite book of the year.[39] American writer Siri Hustvedt also praised the book.[40] The book explores themes of secular versus orthodox religious practice, conservative versus liberal politics and modern Turkish attitudes towards these .[41]
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.[44] In 2019, Shafak was investigated by Turkish prosecutors for addressing child abuse and sexual violence in her fiction writing.[5][needs update]
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.[46]
Shafak's non-fiction essays in Turkish have been collected in four books: Med-Cezir (2005),[47]Firarperest (2010),[48]Şemspare (2012)[49] and Sanma ki Yalnızsın (2017).[50]
In 2020, Shafak published How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division.[2]
Istanbul has been prominent in Shafak's writing. She depicts the city as a melting pot of different cultures and various contradictions.[63] 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."[51] 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."[51]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."[4]
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."[64]
A feminist and advocate for gender equality, Shafak's writing has addressed numerous feminist issues and the role of women in society.[66][63][38] Examples include motherhood[66] and violence against women.[63] In an interview with William Skidelsky for The Guardian, she said: "In Turkey, men write and women read. I want to see this change."[68]
Shafak is an advocate for freedom of expression.[70] 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."[71]
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.[67] 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."[54]
Shafak had lived in Istanbul, and in the United States before moving to the UK.[75] Shafak has lived in London since 2013,[9][76] but speaks of "carrying Istanbul in her soul".[77] As of 2019, Shafak had been in self-imposed exile from Turkey due to fear of prosecution.[67][78]
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.[76][79] In 2017, Shafak came out as bisexual.[80]
Following the birth of her daughter in 2006, Shafak suffered from postnatal depression, a period she addressed in her memoir Black Milk.[81]
^Her name is spelled "Shafak" (with the digraph ⟨Sh⟩ in place of the ⟨Ş⟩) on her books published in English, including the Penguin Books edition of The Forty Rules of Love.
^Clee, Nicholas (25 March 2005). "New Wave in Translation". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on 18 September 2021. Retrieved 8 March 2012 – via Marion Boyars.
^Baum, Caroline (17 March 2010). "Breaking down the boundaries". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 8 April 2012.
Kalpaklı, Fatma. Amitav Ghosh ile Elif Şafak’ın Romanlarında Öteki/leştirme/Us and Them Attitude in the Works of Amitav Ghosh and Elif Şafak . Konya: Çizgi Kitabevi, 2016. ISBN978-605-9427-28-9
