Elif Shafak is a modern Turkish writer who has managed to weave East and West together on the pages of 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 her things and leave the house with a child 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 phenomenon. Therefore, from an early age, Elif saw two types of women: a mother - educated, secular, modern, but divorced, and a grandmother - a religious, less educated, traditional medicine woman. Watching them, Elif already in her very young years understood that she did not want to limit herself to a narrow circle of stereotypes and belong only to any one cultural group. She told her imaginary friends about this, writing stories about how she would travel the whole world and destroy the walls erected by people. Worried about the mental health of eight-year-old Elif, her mother bought her a notebook and offered to keep a personal diary, writing down her daily impressions and emotions. But Elif found it boring to write about herself, and she began to write about other people, events that never happened. Around this time, her mother became a diplomat. And from the small, superstitious environment of their grandmother, they move to Spain.
At the Madrid school, Elif was the only Turkish woman among her multicultural classmates. But this did not bring the students together. On the contrary, if something negative about a certain nation happened, the child was ridiculed by other children. Her classmates were interested in what films she watched, whether she smoked, because all Turks are heavy smokers, and they drew conclusions. So she got the experience of cultural stereotypes, which in the future were reflected in the pages of her books.
After Spain, she moved with her mother to live in Jordan, Germany and again to Ankara. And everywhere she wrote her observations of people in a notebook.
Career
At the age of 21, Elif moved to Istanbul, to a crowded and modern area, where she wrote her first novels - Kem Gözlere Anadolu (1994) and Pinhan (1997).
After the earthquake in Turkey in 1999, a new novel was published - Şehrin Aynaları. The book was written by Elif under the impression of what she saw when, at three o'clock in the morning, she ran out of the house and stumbled upon a local grocer. He, who does not sell alcohol and does not recognize the marginalized, sat next to a gay man and offered him a cigarette. In the face of death, all earthly differences evaporated - Elif saw this, and it will forever remain in her memory.
Soon after the incident, she moved to Boston, where she studied at a girls' 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 - Flea Palace (2002), the novel received an Independent Award nomination for translated prose in 2005, Purgatory (2004).
In 2006, Elif was put on trial after the publication of the novel “The Foundling of Istanbul” about the Armenian-Turkish conflict in the family through the eyes of a woman. But the charges were dropped after proving that the characters were all fictional. And Elif continued to write - to write what she felt with her heart. Subsequently, from her pen came the works "Black Milk" (2007), "Love" (2009), "Kâğıt Helva" (2010) and "İskender" (2011).
Personal life
During the period when Elif lived in Boston, her family began to push her to get married and settle down with a nomadic life. Elif got married, but instead of becoming an exemplary housewife, she left for Arizona. The husband stayed in Istanbul. Elif began to live between two places on Earth and her husband, realizing that part of her remained a nomad, both physically and spiritually supported. But soon he himself began to accompany her on trips.
