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Contributor

Elif Shafak

Contributor

Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak was born in France in 1971 and spent her childhood in Spain. After studying political science in Turkey, she went on to hold teaching positions in the United Kingdom, Turkey, and the United States. Her publications include both novels and essays, among them The Saint of Incipient Insanities, Bit Palas, Mahrem, which won the Turkish Writers' Association Best Novel of the Year Award, and Sehrin Aynalari. Her reviews have appeared in The Economist, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, and The Washington Post.

 

Her novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, was the subject of an interrogation and trial under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which prohibits "public denigration of Turkishness." Shafak was acquitted of charges in September 2006.

Articles by Elif Shafak

Nausea
By Elif Shafak
Sorrow is a dirt for her, the moment she notices a speck of it smeared on her body, she scrubs it off her skin.
Translated from Turkish by the author
Women Writers, Islam, and the Ghost of Zulaikha
By Elif Shafak
First, the woman writer systematically refrains from writing on sexuality until she is old.
Translated from Turkish by the author