Dareechah-e-Nigaarish

 Elif Shafak

Turkish-British novelist; b. 1971
Bio-Sketch courtesy of Wikipedia



Elif Shafak, a Turkish-British novelist, was born in Strasbourg, Germany in 1971 to philosopher Nuri Bilgin and Shafak Atayman. After her parents separated, Shafak returned to Ankara, Turkey, where she was raised by her Mom and maternal grandma (Naani Jaan).

She says that growing up in a dysfunctional family, dealing with the separation of her parents and being raised by a single mother were the difficulties she faced.

However, being raised by a household run by women (her Mom and maternal grandma) instead of a man, allowed her freedom to grow intellectually as a young girl and a young woman. She met her half-brothers for the first time when she was in her mid-twenties.

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 (Spain), Jordan and Germany.



Elif Shafak (b.1971) is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, public speaker, political scientist (PhD in Political Science) and activist. Shafak writes in Turkish and English, and has published 9 novels in English. She is best known for The Gaze, The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, Three Daughters of Eve and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Her books have been translated into 55 languages and been nominated for several literary awards. Described by The Financial Times as "Turkey's leading female novelist", several of her works have been bestsellers in Turkey and internationally.

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, genocide of Yazidi people and the Armenian genocide, have led to legal action from the Turkish government and has forced Shafak to leave Turkey and emigrate to Britain.

Shafak also holds a PhD in political science. An essayist and contributor to several media outlets, Shafak has advocated for women's rights, minority rights, and freedom of speech.



The novels of Elif Shafak (Turkish-British novelist; b. 1971)

1999 The Gaze

2002 The Flea Palace

2004 The Saint of Incipient Insanities

2006 The Bastard of Istanbul

2009 The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi

2011 Honour

2013 The Architect's Apprentice

2016 Three Daughters of Eve

2018 Ten Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

A beautiful and compelling novel, Elif Shafak's The Gaze considers the damage which can be inflicted by our simple desire to look at others
"I didn't say anything. I didn't return his smiles. I looked at him in the wide mirror in front of where I was sitting. He grew uncomfortable and avoided my eyes. I hate those who think fat people are stupid.'
An obese woman and her lover, a dwarf, are sick of being stared at wherever they go, and so decide to reverse roles. The man goes out wearing make up and the woman draws a moustache on her face. But while the woman wants to hide away from the world, the man meets the stares from passers-by head on, compiling his 'Dictionary of Gazes' to explore the boundaries between appearance and reality.
Intertwined with the story of a bizarre freak-show organised in Istanbul in the 1880s, The Gaze considers the damage which can be inflicted by our simple desire to look at others.
"Beautifully evoked" - The Times
"Original and Compelling" - TLS
"Plays with ideas of beauty and ugliness like they're Rubik's cubes" - Helen Oyeyemi
"Entertaining and affecting" - Publishers' Weekly

Elif Shafak is the acclaimed author of The Bastard of Istanbul and The Forty Rules of Love and is the most widely read female novelist in Turkey. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is a contributor for The Telegraph, Guardian and the New York Times and her TED talk on the politics of fiction has received 500 000 viewers since July 2010. She is married with two children and divides her time between Istanbul and London.

In this lyrical, exuberant tale, acclaimed Turkish-British author Elif Shafak,  incarnates Rumi's timeless message of love. The Forty Rules of Love unfolds two tantalizing parallel narratives—one contemporary and the other set in the thirteenth century, when Rumi encountered his spiritual mentor, the whirling dervish known as Shams of Tabriz—that together explore the enduring power of Rumi's work. 

Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy, a novel written by a man named Aziz Zahara. Ella is mesmerized by his tale of Shams's search for Rumi and the dervish's role in transforming the successful but unhappy cleric into a committed mystic, passionate poet, and advocate of love. She is also taken with Shams's lessons, or rules, that offer insight into an ancient philosophy based on the unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As she reads on, she realizes that Rumi's story mir­rors her own and that Zahara—like Shams—has come to set her free.

From Publishers Weekly

In her second novel written in English, The Bastard of Istanbul, Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak tackles Turkish national identity and the Armenian Genocide "question" in her signature style. In a novel that overflows with a kitchen sink's worth of zany characters, women are front and center: Asya Kazanci, an angst-ridden 19-year-old Istanbulite is the bastard of the title; her beautiful, rebellious mother, Zeliha (who intended to have an abortion), has raised Asya among three generations of complicated and colorful female relations (including religious clairvoyant Auntie Banu and bar-brawl widow, Auntie Cevriye). The Kazanci men either die young or take a permanent hike like Mustafa, Zeliha's beloved brother who immigrated to America years ago. Mustafa's Armenian-American stepdaughter, Armanoush, who grew up on her family's stories of the 1915 genocide, shows up in Istanbul looking for her roots and for vindication from her new Turkish family. The Kazanci women lament Armanoush's family's suffering, but have no sense of Turkish responsibility for it; Asya's boho cohorts insist there was no genocide at all. As the debate escalates, Mustafa arrives in Istanbul, and a long-hidden secret connecting the histories of the two families is revealed. Shafak was charged with "public denigration of Turkishness" when the novel was published in Turkey earlier this year (the charges were later dropped). She incorporates a political taboo into an entertaining and insightful ensemble novel, one that posits the universality of family, culture and coincidence. (Jan. 22)
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In the pulsating moments after she has been murdered and left in a dumpster outside Istanbul, Tequila Leila enters a state of heightened awareness. Her heart has stopped beating but her brain is still active-for 10 minutes 38 seconds. While the Turkish sun rises and her friends sleep soundly nearby, she remembers her life-and the lives of others, outcasts like her.

Tequila Leila's memories bring us back to her childhood in the provinces, a highly oppressive milieu with religion and traditions, shaped by a polygamous family with two mothers and an increasingly authoritarian father. Escaping to Istanbul, Leila makes her way into the sordid industry of sex trafficking, finding a home in the city's historic Street of Brothels. This is a dark, violent world, but Leila is tough and open to beauty, light, and the essential bonds of friendship.

In Tequila Leila's death, the secrets and wonders of modern Istanbul come to life, painted vividly by the captivating tales of how Leila came to know and be loved by her friends. As her epic journey to the afterlife comes to an end, it is her chosen family who brings her story to a buoyant and breathtaking conclusion.