Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist. As the daughter of a single diplomat, she lived in France, Spain, and Jordan during her youth. Travel and multiculturalism are recurring themes in her novels, where she tells stories about women, migrants, and minorities. Her books, including The Bastard of Istanbul (2007), The Forty Rules of Love (2011) and most recently There Are Rivers in the Sky (2023), have been translated into more than forty languages. Besides being a gifted writer, Shafak is also an influential political commentator and an inspiring public speaker. She has written for The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, and La Repubblica. Shafak is a co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations, and in 2010, she was appointed a Knight in the French Order of Arts and Letters.