Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

From her Q & A with Anna Metcalfe for the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

I wouldn’t say it was one book; it was the process of reading. I was a very lonely child, bored with life, withdrawn. Books introduced me to a new world and they have never abandoned me.

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Which literary character most resembles you?

Several. Inside us as women we have a little harem of female voices, coexisting and competing. Jo March in Little Women has always been a favourite of mine.

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What book do you wish you’d written?

I was quite jealous of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger.

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Can you remember the first novel you read?

A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I was at primary school so I don’t know how much I understood but I noticed the characters, the intensity, passion and conflict.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue