Elif Shafak

My hands were often too cold to operate the controls, and we were hounded by helicopters and tackled to the ground by towering Scandinavian police, each wearing an amount of Kevlar armor equal to their already generous body weight.

But the pushback from the authorities was also evidence of the sound swarm's effectiveness.

It only took six people to create a cacophony of angry animals, swarms of bees, and compositions of crackling Arctic ice that bellowed through the streets near the conference.

We definitely got noticed.

Um, and they, this is really cool, they actually planted, like, thousands of trees around the library so that they can use those trees to m- create the paper that they're putting in the books.

Some of the authors that are in this library include Margaret Atwood, Han Kang, Ocean Vuong, and Elif Shafak.

So really ...

It's really cool.

Welcome to This Cultural Life, the series in which some of the world's leading artistic figures choose the influences and experiences that have most inspired their own creativity.

I'm John Wilson, and my guest in this episode is the best-selling Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak.

Renowned for epic stories that connect the past and the present, told from multiple perspectives, her novels explore marginalized communities and exiled people.

An activist who's campaigned for the rights of women and freedom of expression, She faced prosecution in Turkey in 2006, accused of insulting Turkishness.

Elif Shafak's 2019 novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and her 2021 novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a finalist for the Women's Prize for Fiction.

Her books have been translated into more than 50 languages.

In 2025, she was elected as president of the Royal Society of Literature.

Elif Shafak, welcome to This Cultural Life.

And for those that celebrate, happy International Podcast Day.

I'm thrilled that my first guest this season is Elif Shafak.

Elif is an award-winning essayist and storyteller whose work has been translated into dozens of languages.

Her novels include The Island of Missing Trees, Three Daughters of Eve, and There Are Rivers in the Sky.

And before we can build a more connected world, perhaps we first have to imagine one together.

You've been listening to Our World Connected, a podcast from the British Council with me, Christine Wilson.

Many thanks to Elif Shafak and Deepa Bhasti for their contributions to today's episode.

And thanks to the British Council for making this podcast possible.

Tell us about what you've been reading lately.

Well, I have just finished There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak, who is an author that, despite rave reviews and me being impressed by many talks I've seen with her online, I have not yet read, which is somewhat shameful.

That's really surprising.

Yeah.

trigger warning i do just want to say that anybody who knows anything about the plight of the yazidi will know that some very awful things are going to befall naren in 2014 isis massacred up to 5 000 yazidi and sinjar and abducted more than that and sold them into slavery often sexual the yazidi have been targeted over time they are still seeking justice it's very difficult to read about but i did appreciate shedding light on these tragedies i think it's really important i remember actually seeing a lecture about this in 2016 And being like, how does the world look away from certain stories? So I was happy to see it here.

I remember reading it when it first came out.

And then I watched a interview with Elif Shafak.

And she spoke about how she first came up with the idea.

And only then can we genuinely choose the life we want instead of semi-automatically or fully automatically leave one we were assigned.

I recently came across an interview with the fantastic novelist Elif Shafak, and she spoke about Zygmunt Bauman's idea of inner democracy.

Zygmunt Bauman suggested that while we understand political democracy, Many of us still live under what he calls an inner dictatorship, right? We tend to silence the parts of ourselves because they don't fit the identity that we've constructed for ourselves or that others have constructed for ourselves.

And this, again, resonated with me because during my recovery, Jung's idea of shadow work made me realize that healing wasn't about becoming someone new, right? But it was about allowing more parts of myself to have a voice.

you, Sally.

Well, I'm just going to highlight the next Elif Shafak, which is due in October in one brief moment, All Eternity.

which I think will be...

That sounds like one of her titles.

Brilliant.

And some of them, I'm, I'm, I've become addicted, like, um, I don't know what it is, but I saw Elif Shafak's name quite a bit around, and I thought, "I don't know if I want to pick up this book."

Right.

Someone recommended one of her books, and I read eight of them already.

Something that Maya said was improving critical thinking skills.

Yeah.

And that's, like, a really key thing because when you read books, like if you read Elif Shafak, I'm h- honestly not getting paid for this, but if you read her books, they are about migrants, they are about relationships, they are about coming and living in Britain, going and living abroad.

There is so much in there that I think if these people who are just, um, stop the boats people-