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How to pronounce Elif Shafak: El-liff Sha-fahk
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish author of a dozen novels, including The Island of Missing Trees, which was short-listed for the Costa Novel Award, and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Her work has been translated into fifty-six languages. She holds a PhD in political science and has taught at universities in Turkey, the United States and the United Kingdom. She lives in London and is an honorary fellow at Oxford University.
Elif Shafak's website
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Elif Shafak, author of The Bastard of Istanbul, discusses her childhood, growing up in different parts of Europe, her adult years spent between Turkey and the US, the insights she has gained from the various cultures, and how it has affected her writing. (3/1/2007):
A Conversation with Elif Shafak
Where were you born, and when and how did you come to live in America?
I was born in France, Strasbourg, in 1971. All throughout my childhood and youth I have lived in different cities and countries, including Madrid, Spain; Amman, Jordan; and Cologne, Germany. Then in my thirties I came to the United States, first to Boston, then Michigan and Arizona. I am not an immigrant. I guess all my life I have been a nomad, a commuter.
You divide your time between Istanbul, Turkey, and Tucson, Arizona. What do you think is the most striking contrast between the two cities? What do you think they have most in common?
I have always danced around this question, and I think I’m going to continue dancing around it now. Like Miles, I grew up in Florida and attended a boarding school in Alabama. And the physical setting of Alaska is very, very similar to the physical place I attended boarding school. Generally, the ...
Tash Aw is the author of four novels, including We, the Survivors, and a memoir of a Chinese-Malaysian family, Strangers on a Pier, both finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His work has also won the Whitbread and ... (more)
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