Elif Shafak is a modern Turkish writer who managed to weave East and West together in her novels, breaking the labels of stereotypes.
Biography
Elif Shafak was born on October 25, 1971 in France, Strasbourg. But a year after the birth of his daughter, the head of the family filed for divorce. Little Elif’s mother had no choice but to pack and leave the house with the baby in her arms. So, together, they returned to Turkey, Ankara.
Elif grew up as the only child of a single mother in a patriarchal country. In the early 70s, this was quite an unusual occurrence. Therefore, from an early age, Elif saw two types of women: a mother - an educated, secular, modern, but divorced and a grandmother - a religious, less educated, adherent of traditions, a healer. Watching them, Elif already in her earliest years understood that she did not want to limit herself to a narrow circle of stereotypes and belong to only one cultural group. She told about this to her imaginary friends, writing stories, how she would travel the whole world and destroy the walls erected by people. Excited about the mental health of eight-year-old Elif, her mother bought her a notebook and offered to keep a personal diary, recording daily impressions and emotions in it. But Elif seemed to write to herself a boring lesson and she began to write about other people, events that never happened. Around the same time, her mother became a diplomat. And from the small, superstitious environment of their grandmother, they move to Spain.
At Madrid's school, Elif was the only Turkish among multinational classmates. But this did not bring students together. On the contrary, if something negative happened about a particular nation, the child was ridiculed by other children. Her classmates were interested in what films she watched, whether she smoked, because all the Turks were heavy smokers, and made conclusions. So she gained experience of cultural stereotypes, which in the future were reflected in the pages of her books.
After Spain, she and her mother moved to live in Jordan, in Germany and again to Ankara. And everywhere she wrote her observations of people in a notebook.
Career
At age 21, Elif moved to Istanbul, in a crowded and modern district, where she wrote her first novels - Kem Gözlere Anadolu (1994) and Pinhan (1997).
After the earthquake in Turkey in 1999, a new novel was released - Şehrin Aynaları. The book was written by Elif, impressed by what he saw, when at three in the morning she ran out of the house and came across a local grocer. He, who does not sell alcohol and does not recognize marginalized people, sat next to a man of gay orientation and offered him a cigarette. In the face of death, all the earthly differences disappeared - this was seen by Elif, and this will forever remain in her memory.
Shortly after the incident, she moved to Boston, where she studied at a female college, and then to Michigan. For her, it was not only a change of residence, but also a change of language. Elif began writing books in English - "The Flea Palace" (2002), the novel received a nomination for the Independent Award for translated prose in 2005, "Purgatory" (2004).
In 2006, Elif went on trial after the publication of the Istanbul Foundling Foundry on the Armenian-Turkish conflict in the family through the eyes of a woman. But the charges were dropped, after proving that all the characters were fictional. And Elif continued to write - to write what she felt with her heart. Subsequently, Black Milk (2007), Love (2009), Kâğıt Helva (2010) and İskender (2011) came out from her pen.
