Elif Shafak

Bestselling Turkish-British novelist Elif Shafak talks to John Wilson about her formative cultural influences. Renowned for epic stories that connect the past and the present, told from multiple perspectives, her novels explore marginalised communities and exiled people. An activist who has campaigned for the rights of women and freedom of expression, she faced prosecution in Turkey in 2006, accused for ‘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. Her latest novel One Brief Moment All Eternity is a portrait of the French writer Gustav Flaubert told through the eyes of the women who shaped him.

Producer: Edwina Pitman