Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep7: Bookshelfie: Elif Shafak

Episode Date: April 23, 2024

Award-winning British-Turkish novelist and 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlisted author Elif Shafak reveals the five books that have shaped her life and career. Elif has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels, including The Island of Missing Trees, shortlisted for the Costa Award, British Book Awards, RSL Ondaatje Prize and 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction.  Elif holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She also holds a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bard College and is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature and has done two Global TED talks, gaining millions of views. Elif has been chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 most inspiring and influential women and in 2016 she was a judge for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She is an advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression and her new book There are Rivers in the Sky is out in August.  Elif’s book choices are: ** Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier ** Orlando by Virginia Woolf ** A Gate At the Stairs by Lorrie Moore ** Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi ** A Woman Looking At Men Looking At Women by Siri Hustvedt Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of season seven? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

I think being a novelist, the way I describe it, is a bit like, you're a bit like an archaeologist, you know, a linguistic archaeologist. You have to dig deep and you have to look for the ruins and the remnants, the remains. With thanks to Bayleys, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for Season 7 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2024 readings. Today I'm joined by Elif Shafak. Elif is an award-winning Turkish-British novelist. She has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels, including the Island of Missing Trees, shortlisted for the Costa Award. the British Book Awards, R.S.L. and Dachie Prize, and the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction.

Ellef holds a PhD in Political Science, and she's taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She also holds a doctorate of humane letters from Bard College and is a fellow and a vice president of the Royal Society of Literature and has done two global TED Talks, gaining millions of views. Elif has been chosen as one of the BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women and in 2016 she was a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She's an advocate for women's rights, LGBT plus rights and freedom of expression and her new book, There Are Rivers in the Sky, comes out in August. Welcome, Elif. Thank you so much. We were just saying before we started recording that

choosing books to bring today, it's hard. There are so many that have affected us and not often you know you love a book, but you don't necessarily remember what happens in it. That is so true. I mean, sometimes you only remember a feeling, you know, how that book made you feel. And that's actually a very long-lasting memory, emotional memory. You know why you love that book. But if someone were to ask you, you know, how would you summarize that book, then you would struggle, perhaps, to put it into just a few words. Totally. Totally.

And some books you like because you love the story, others because of the style and others, you don't even know why you. you like them. They just speak to something deep in your soul. It's that feeling. Some of my favorite books, I could not tell you what happens in them. But there are some feelings that will stay with me forever. What are your reading habits? Do they impact or inspire your writing or do you try not to read when you are writing? I do read pretty much all the time every day, but I read different types of book depending on what I am doing at that stage in my life in the sense that like before I start writing a novel I always do a lot of research I always take the research bit very seriously I stayed long years in academia and while I'm a very impatient person in my life

I'm incredibly patient when I'm writing a novel like if I have to do a thorough research about mosquitoes, about fungi, about, you know, seemingly small things, I will do it. I'll read everything I can find on that subject. So novels take me into different disciplines. I love interdisciplinary work, interdisciplinary eclectic reading lists. I think we should read across the board fiction and nonfiction. And if I may add this very quickly, sometimes readers, usually it's male readers who do this. They say, you know, so much is happening in the world, I want to follow it, I read about technology, finance, important things, you know, economy, politics, but I don't read fiction. My wife reads fiction, as if it's women's domain, you know.

And I feel sad when I hear such things, because I think we live in a world in which every one of us needs to connect with our, you know, emotional intelligence. We need to connect with our emotions. I don't know a single person doesn't need to do that. But also, I think in order to understand the world better, we need to feel. fiction. Fiction gives us the kind of empathy and emotional intelligence that we very much need to make sense of this world. We understand people better. Yeah, and ourselves. And ourselves. I always say a good book makes me look at the world differently, but also makes me look at myself differently.

And when you are reading, you're researching for your work, do you search out books that relate to what you're working on? It's sometimes inspiration come to you through the books. that you read. Yeah, inspiration comes, I think, from everywhere. I think writers need to be two things primarily. We need to be good readers, but also we need to be good listeners. And I try to listen to people a lot, not only what they're saying, but how they're saying, what they're saying, with what kind of energy, which emotions are buried in those words and silences. So I think there's no shortage of inspiration in life, but most of, the work of a novelist is just primarily the craft, you know, more than inspiration, more than

talent. It's just sitting at your desk, day after day, hour after hour, and do the work. That bit is a bit more difficult to talk about. It's less romantic, but I think that's the core. Well, let's talk about the books that have inspired you, that have impacted you. Let's tell the story of your life through the books that you've loved, your first book, Shelfy book is Rebecca by Daphne de Mauri. On a trip to the south of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, a change comes over Maxim and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realizes

that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife Rebecca and the new Mrs. De Winter walks in her shadow. You think, I've heard you say, that every woman should read this Gothic novel twice. Why is that? Because I think we should read it for the first time ideally in our youth, early youth, and then many years later as a middle aged woman, you read it and you realize it's different. The way you read it is very different. I was young when I read Rebecca for the first time. I loved the book. But I reread it recently.

And it's amazing. I mean, the things that I hadn't noticed my first reading, I noticed this time, made me angry, made me interact with the novel in a completely different way. It's a brilliant, brilliant book. I love Rebecca. I think it's a very multi-layered book, but you can't just read it. once. You know, it's the kind of book that deserves to be read and re-read and re-analyzed. It's been described so many times by so many people as an all-time classic. Yeah. What makes

it so powerful? I think it touches something very deep inside us, the fear of comparison, competition, but these are all, of course, roles that patriarchy itself pushes us into. Like, we always since our girlhood, childhood, we grow up, molded into a certain type of womanhood. We are being told that we have to fit into that description of womanhood. There's always a comparison, the good woman, the bad woman, the other woman, you know, you're not young enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not this enough, that enough. So much so that when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we can. judge ourselves through the gaze of patriarchy. We think we're not, you know, slim enough or this

enough or that enough. I think patriarchy is that it's strongest, not when it's imposed from above by coercion, by force, by power, but rather it's that it's strongest when it's internalized and normalized by women themselves to such an extent that the abnormal becomes the norm, the thing that is unequal and unfair becomes the norm. So at that moment, when it's internalized, we lose our sense of security. And so the young woman at the heart of Rebecca, who doesn't have a name, you see her timidity, her insecurity, always in competition with the ghost of this other women, rather than questioning the husband himself or the system itself, you know, questioning or competing with this other woman.

There's a lot to analyze in Rebecca. It's a very atmospheric book. It's incredibly well written, very smart, very poetic as well. But when you just finish the book, what stays with you is the entire atmosphere, the place, the house, the landscape. It's so very well written. Really, it's a timeless book. And you said you read it when you were quite young the first time. Can you remember how old thereabouts?

In my early 20s, I really. Yeah. Paint a picture of the girl, the woman, the young woman that this book connected with at that time. What was your upbringing? What was guiding you at the time, you know, at the beginning of an illustrious career as a writer? I read it when I was a young aspiring writer in Istanbul. I was reading in English extensively at the time, although I was writing in Turkish at the time, you know. And I think in many ways I felt a bit suffocated.

I've always felt like the other growing up in Turkey, partly because of my own life circumstances, but also, of course, partly because of who I am and the system that I found myself in. I was born in France shortly afterwards my parents got separated. My father stayed in France. He got married again. He had a second family with my mother. We came to Turkey. and we came to Ankara to a very, very conservative, inward-looking, patriarchal neighborhood.

This was my maternal grandmother's house. And thereafter, I was raised by two women, my mother and my grandmother. And this was a bit unusual at the time. You know, we were like a bit odd. We were a bit different. My mother also went back to university because she had dropped out of university when she got married. So when she came back as a young divorcee, she had no. diploma, no career, no money, nothing to fall back on. And it was my grandmother who raised me

until I was 10 years old. And life was very lonely, but books connected me with the world. And it was books that showed me there were other possibilities in life, you know, other journeys. You could transcend the borders drawn in front of you. All of that I owe to books. So coming to my early 20s, I was writing at the time. but of course feeling very insecure. I mean, doubt is always part of the life of a writer. That's never going to disappear. But what you realize as you get older is that that's okay, you know,

and it's part of the journey. And you should welcome the anxieties, the doubts, sometimes the depression, you know, sometimes the mental health struggles. All of that is okay. And we should be able to talk about these things openly in our public space. But I didn't know none of this at the time. So you carry this feeling thinking there's something. wrong with me. Everyone else is very happy. Everyone else is perfect. But I'm not like them. I can't do it the way

they do. So why am I struggling this much? You don't realize that everyone actually is struggling. And people who pretend not to be struggling are the ones actually who are perhaps more broken inside. So it takes a while to discover all these things. And again, I owe it to literature books like Rebecca that show you the complexity of human existence. but also the struggles of women, both women who are younger, but also women who are older as well because I think patriarchy makes life difficult for women at every stage of their lives.

Reading it, like you said, as a young woman and then coming back to it in middle age, how has your relationship with patriarchy changed upon that second reading? Or had it at all? One thing that I find very important, again, coming from a country like Turkey, which is quite conservative, very patriarchal, very homophobic, you know, when you look at the fabric of the society, of course patriarchy makes life difficult for women. But I've also seen that men are unhappy in patriarchal systems as well, especially young men who do not fit into that description of the straight jacket of masculinity, especially. for instance, men who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, men who are not in positions of power, or for instance, men from LGBTQ plus communities, etc.

So for whatever reason, if you don't fit into the description of that almost macho masculinity, your life can be quite difficult as a man as well. So I started analyzing patriarchy in a much more nuanced way, in a much more multilayered way. Now, this is relevant for Rebecca because it brings us to this notion of internalized patriarchy. When we women internalize patriarchy, we start judging ourselves and each other through the gaze of patriarchy. And I think that's something we need to be very, very cautious of. Earlier, I mentioned that I was raised by two women, my mother and my grandmother. There were completely different personalities.

But what stayed with me very vividly and what changed my life was the solidarity. between them. I'm a big believer in sisterhood, you know, empowerment. I think we need to empower each other. And we need to also understand that there are glass ceilings, yes, but there are also glass walls. So we need to talk about racial inequality, class inequality, regional inequality, and many other glass walls that also keep women apart from each other, right? We need to question, in other us what I'm trying to say is we need to connect the dots. We can't be just single issue people, especially in this age. It's time to talk about the second book that you've brought today, Elif, which is Orlando by Virginia Woolf. First masculine, then feminine. Orlando begins life as a young

16th century nobleman, then gallots through the centuries to end up as a woman writer in Virginia Wolf's own time. Written for the charismatic, bisexual writer Vita Sackville West, this playful mock biography of a chameleon-like historical figure is both a wry commentary on gender and, in wolf's own words, a writer's holiday, which delights in its ambiguity and capriciousness. Now, I know this novel has a special place in your heart. What is that? Why is that? It is very, very close to my heart. I mean, earlier we spoke about Rebecca. I love it as a story, but when it comes to Orlando, it's the craft itself, you know, how? How do you write a novel?

I remember the first time I read Orlando and I read it several times throughout my life, but the first time I read it, it was just mind-blowing for me because I never knew you could write a novel in this way. What I associate Orlando with is freedom. It's a very fluid book in the sense that it just wants to go and transcend all boundaries, all borders, geographical borders, borders of time. You know, it's a book that traverses centuries, a huge landscape. Orlando, you know, comes all the way to Turkey, to Bursa, to Istanbul, for instance.

But also, as you said, there's a journey across genders, age, perceptions. I mean, it is as if the writer is trying to say, I want to be free, you know. You can't stop my writing. And I construct an entire book upon that notion of freedom. It's a book that I find very important. And I think that should be read and reread several times. That word freedom, that notion, you associate this book with freedom.

I've heard you describe it as a novel made of water, fluid and flowing. What does freedom mean to you and what is your experience of it? You know, in our daily lives, of course, we are constantly. constantly constrained by logic or there are certain public roles expected of us. Actually, we're multiple things. Perhaps no one said it better than Audrey Lord. I love her work so much. You know, she said, I'm a woman, I'm gay, I'm a poet, I'm black, I'm this, I'm that,

and I'm many more things that you might not be able to see at first glance, you know? So these women, especially African-American women's movement of 1960s and 70s, it left a huge impact on me. And when you read their works, I think many of them put emphasis on the multiplicity within. A bit like following Walt Whitman's, you know, poem, I carry multitudes inside.

Now, fast forward to our age, this is something that we forgot because we're always attached a label, usually from outside. You know, we're defined externally. And then we pushed into a box and expect to stay inside that box once and for all. But when I go back to African-American women's movement of 1960s and 70s,

actually they were very much aware about how power worked. They had a much more pluralistic approach towards power. Many of these women, being black, they were on the receiving end of racism. Being women, they were on the receiving end of sexism and misogyny. Many of them came from disadvantaged backgrounds. they knew how class hierarchy worked. A big number of them came from LGBTQ plus communities, so they knew how homophobia or transphobia worked, etc.

So what I'm trying to say is you see the seeds of intersectional feminism. Today it's an important word, but actually these women were talking about it decades back. They were already planting the seeds for intersectional feminism. And I think for me, Orlando is a book that I very much associate with intersectionality. Now we can talk about, you know, Virginia Woolf herself. In some ways she could be elitist in some other ways when you look at her life.

There are things that she said you might not agree with. I might not agree with and so on. Authors are very complicated. But I'm focusing on the book itself. It's not only fluid and water-like, but it's so multi-layered. And for me, it's a book that I very much associate with intersectionality. On fluidity, on water. your new book,

There are rivers in the sky. You immerse yourself in the mysteries of water. The story explores how three characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris are affected by the epic of Gilgamesh. What more can you tell us about the books? I know it's not out just yet. So there are rivers in the sky. It's the story of three fictional characters.

They seem to be completely different at first glance, but they are connected, hopefully in a very surprising way. And so it's three fictional characters, two rivers, ancient rivers, old rivers. One of them is the river Thames and the other one is the river Tigris in the Middle East. So three characters, two rivers and one ancient poem, epic poem, which is the epic of Gilgamesh. Three, two, one. And everything is connected through a single drop of water.

It's a book that I think has, I don't know, an echo-aware. at its heart. I love reading about water, thinking about water, but also about cultural heritage, whom does his heritage belong to. So it's a book that tries to discuss difficult questions, not easy questions, but from a much more nuanced perspective. Do you ever feel the pressure before putting out a new piece of work into the world, especially when there has been such success before? I think there's always pressure. And, you know, I was reading an essay by Virginia Woolf the other day, and she talks about how she's struggling to write, you know. We do struggle.

Sometimes people think that if you are older, if you have written a couple of books, then you know how to do it. And it's easy. Not at all. I think it never gets any easier at all. And you always go through these values of anxiety, mountains of doubt. Some weeks you feel like, okay, I got a great story, you know. You have to have that kind of faith. You have to believe that what you're doing is so unique and so unusual.

You have to have that kind of optimism. But then the next week you might be crawling on the floor, like maybe taking out and deleting 50 pages that you wrote the week before. So it's not a linear, straightforward path. Doubt is an essential part of it. But I think what keeps me going is love. I love the art of storytelling. And that love is stronger than my doubts.

That love is stronger than my anxiety. You can never get rid of the anxiety and adapt 100%. But if you can make love the guiding force, I think that's enough. Yeah, that's good. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments

and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. people. Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out bailey's.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Your third book today is A Gate at the Stairs by Laurie Moore. With America quietly gearing up for war in the Middle East, 20-year-old Tassie Kelchin, a half-Jewish farmer's daughter from the plains of the Midwest, has come to university. When she takes a job as a nanny to a couple who seem both mysterious and glamorous, Tassie is drawn into a life of their complicated household. As her past becomes increasingly alien to her, Tassie finds herself becoming a stranger to herself. Refracted through the eyes of this memorable narrator, a gate at the stairs is a lyrical, beguiling and wise novel of Our Times.

Now you've described this as the kind of book that makes you understand why you love. literature so much. Can you explain the impact that it had on you? Yeah, I think it's the writing skill that struck me. It's quite atmospheric as well, the descriptions, it's very lyrical, but there's something much stronger in this book, and it's something that actually James Baldwin used to talk about, Baldwin, and I'm paraphrasing, I might not remember it exactly, but he says, you know, you think your sorrows are unique, you think your own journeys, your own, loneliness. You're the only one who's experienced these things, but then you read. And when you read, you realize that you're not alone, right? So this is that kind of a book. I mean, literature is

amazing because in so many ways, but it also captures that essence of human loneliness. At many moments in our lives, we feel alienated, as if we can't fit in. We feel like we're outsiders for different reasons. So that is a very lonely position, but it's also a great threshold for art. It makes you an observer. This book is written through the eyes of that observer, you know, looking at herself, looking at things from outside, not quite fitting in, not quite belonging, but also observing with an immense emotional intelligence. So those are the feelings that stayed very much with me after reading this book. And it's that storytelling craft again that we keep coming back to that you love so much.

You said previously that even though women are generally seen as storytellers, it's all fine as long as they remain anonymous or within the confines of oral storytelling. When the same women step into that privileged zone of written culture, the perception in society tends to be vastly different. What's your experience been of this? This really strikes a quote with me because, again, coming from Turkey, on the one hand, women are regarded as storytellers, but oral storytellers, not necessarily associated with written culture. They can write poetry, and I have huge respect for poetry, by the way. But the novel in Turkey is regarded as a much more cerebral genre in the sense that that's where you discuss ideas, right?

So that is not associated with women. Women are more identified with emotions. So I've always struggled with this. It felt like, because when you look at the readers, most of them, most of fiction readers are women in Turkey. So there were moments when it felt like women read men, right. And I always wanted to dismantle that hierarchy. Women are amazing storytellers, but we're never encouraged to write it.

Also, even when we become writers, the things we write will not be reviewed and judged in the same way as male writers. So women's writing is usually regarded as more feminine. You know, if you're a woman writer, you're expected to write about things that are considered to be womenly issues such as marriage, divorce, you know, domestic life, children, etc. but not novels of ideas, for instance. In other words, women's writing is regarded as less intellectual. Now, here in the UK, we are very allergic to the word intellectual, but I want to question that. I think, for instance, Virginia Woolf was a very intellectual writer.

Iris Murdoch was, A.S. Bayard, was, you know, why can't we talk about this? We don't like the word public intellectual in the UK, but I want to question that. I think in our public spaces, we need more. women intellectuals and we definitely need more intellectuals from minority backgrounds, from working class backgrounds, you know, diversify these public space debates. You write in both English and Turkish, do you think those connotations or those attitudes

towards intellectual prowess or even humor influence whether you want to write in English or Turkish. Of course, as you can hear in my accent, you know, the mistakes that I make, I am an immigrant in this language. English for me is an acquired language. I did not grow up in a bilingual household. I started learning English around age 10, 11. But the thing is, it never abandoned me. I've always loved reading in English. I used to write in English, you know, but always I would keep it to myself. So all my earlier novels were written in Turkish first. And I think people who read me in Turkish would agree with this. My Turkish is quite rich in the sense that I use both old words and new words.

This is a huge subject in Turkey because we have Turkified our language, taking out old words that came from Arabic language or from Persian language and so on. But I love that diversity. I don't want to lose that diversity. So all I'm trying to say is language for me is a passion. It's not an instrument. It's not like some spoon or fork that I use and then put aside. It's a space. You enter into that space. You inhale it and it shapes you and it changes you. Now that said, starting to write in English was a completely irrational decision. I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to do it. It was more like an animal instinct. There came a moment in my life when I felt very suffocated and I needed an additional. zone of freedom. So I started writing in English and that gave me another cognitive distance. You know, it is as if like when you want to see a painting more closely, you don't get closer. You take a step back and writing in English in a strange way enabled me, facilitate,

made it possible to take a closer look at where I was coming from. Being a writer in Turkey is very heavy. Being a woman writer is even heavy. Being a woman writer is even year. You know, English gave me a sense of freedom, like one of my earliest novels, the Bastard of Istanbul, even the word bastard was heavy in Turkish, but I could say it in English. I've met many Turkish women who can't swear in Turkish, but they're using, you know, swear words in English left and right easily because it's not the same feeling. Or I've observed immigrants who, you know, express their anger better in one language or their sorrow better in one other language. I'm always intrigued by such things. So in a nutshell, still to this day, if my writing

has melancholy, sorrow, longing, I think I find these things easier to express in Turkish, but when it comes to humor, which I adore, I love, and irony and satire, they're much, much easier in English. It's absolutely fascinating. I love the idea of not using language as tools, but as a space that you step into depending on what you need to feel, what you need to express. Yes. The fourth book that you've brought today to book Shelfi is, well, we said at the beginning that it was difficult to choose and I've got a couple of options here, but we had a little chat and I think we've landed on Persepolis.

Yes. By Majan Satrapi. Wise, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking. Persepolis tells the story of Majan Sastrappi's life in Tehran. Growing up during the Iranian Revolution, the intelligent and outspoken, child of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Pasepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home

life and public life. Tell me why you chose this book. I think it's a remarkable book. It's a graphic novel, of course. And in so many ways, I think it's a, it's a remarkable book. I think it's speaks to readers of all ages. Recently, of course, with what happened in Iran, the killing of Mahas Amini, and also the suffering of so many young people, young women, just trying to defend their most basic fundamental human rights. This is something that's very close to my heart, and I think sometimes we don't realize that our reading lists are very Eurocentric.

you know, which is usually books from Europe, from America. Our prizes are geared in that direction. The reviews are, you know, always tilted in that direction. But there's another literature out there in the Middle East. As you go east and south, there's a multiplicity of traditions of storytelling. And I always try to remember that and keep that in mind. So I love the story here, but I also find it very timely. I think so many young people are reading it today, but not perhaps older people,

but I think people across the board should be reading Persepolis. So, yeah, I wanted to include it because it's beautiful storytelling and it's a very moving story. And it's a story of resilience? It's a story of resilience. What is it about the spirit of resilience that appeals to you that you think is so important for the young people who are reading it and for others who should be or could be reading it? Yeah, I mean, you know, when we talk about resilience, strength, renewal, sometimes we think it is, it means you have to be confident all the time. You have to be strong all the time. There's no such thing, you know. Nobody's confident all the time. That's an image that social media is giving us, you know, this idea of perfection, contentment, absolute happiness, edited lives. None of that is real. The reality is some days we find a difficult. even to get out of bed, you know, some days are easier and so on. But strength for me,

resilience for me, is the ability to renew ourselves, is the compassion we have towards ourselves and towards our fellow human beings, to understand our own weaknesses, flows, but also celebrate our own strengths and, you know, to be able to love ourselves, not in a narcissistic, arrogant, self-centered way, but in a compassionate way. So compassion is a huge part of this discussion. And I think women are remarkably resilient, you know, women of all backgrounds. What gives me hope, because I'm a more pessimistic person, but what gives me optimism and hope in such a difficult world is actually the stories of women, the stories of minorities, you know, when you talk to people, when you listen to people, when you learn about their struggles, their journeys, how they haven't

given up, I think that's incredibly inspiring. So as fellow human beings, we cannot be atomized. We cannot retreat into our own isolated boxes. We have to be connected. And I think global sisterhood, global solidarity is a big part of this. The fact that it keeps coming back to sisterhood and support is so fundamental. and this idea that resilience is not just a hardness, but it's a compassion, compassion for others, but also compassion for yourself. It's something that I think could help a lot of us.

I did say that you struggle to pick which book this would be, and there wasn't just one, there was actually two others that you came close to selected today. We can give honourable mentions. What would they be? So, I mean, then I'll mention them together, if that's okay. I mean, one of them is Carolyn Duffy's, poetry in general. You know, I just wanted to honor her work and express my love and admiration.

Again, you know, I'm going to come back to this point of being an immigrant. One thing you struggle a lot with when you're an immigrant is poetry in another language. Of course, yeah. So I owe it to her because she opened the doors for me, her and several other poets, into poetry in English, you know, where I felt at home. So I have huge respect for her work. But I also wanted to talk about Penelope Lively's fascinating novel, Moon Tiger, which won the Booker Prize. It was published in 1986 or 87, if I'm not mistaken, but it's such a timeless book, very relevant. At the moment I'm writing the introduction.

I feel very honored to be invited to write the introduction to the new edition. I just want to tell you the very first line of the book. It starts with this sentence. saying, I'm going to write a history of the world. And then you realize the person who's saying this is an old, ailing, ill, dying women in a hospital bed. We never expect women, you know, to claim such universality. We always think women's stories are in a separate box and world history is something more grandiose and more serious. But this woman is saying, I'm going to tell you the story of the world. And at the time, I'm going to tell you the story of the world. And at

the same time, I'm going to tell you my own story. So blending the personal with the collective with such confidence and chutzpah is quite unusual what Penelope Lively does as this old woman reminisces in her hospital bed about her own past. We also read about world history. She creates a very complicated human being, you know, like all of us, a combination of good and bad. It's powerful, beautiful literature. I'm sure none of our listeners. are going to begrudge you having added a couple of extra books in the mix there, a couple of extra books for their reading lists. And I'm in the market for hearing the history of the world,

so I'm making a note of that. Speaking of choosing, and we said it is so difficult to narrow it down to five. So I am sorry for that. But you've been both a judge and also a shortlisted author for the Women's Prize for Fiction. What was it like being on both sides of the coin? It's such an honour, honestly, both sides of the coin.

Yeah. And it's not easy. I have experienced both journeys. When you're a judge, it's not easy to reduce the number of books, you know, to decide on the long list. And then the short list is even harder. And then the winner is the hardest part of the journey. By that point, I think each and every judge becomes very emotionally attached. So when we have our own little quarrels in the room, it's not because people want to disagree.

It's only because everybody is emotionally attached to their favorite books because we've read those books again and again and we love them so we can't let go. And that's beautiful. That's very sincere. There's a very genuine side to it all. I want there to be, to be honest, more literary prizes. you know, for younger writers, middle-aged, the younger writers, as we said, it doesn't get any easier. So rather than having less prizes, I hope there will be more and more in the coming years.

When you are nominated for a prize like the Women's Prize, it's life-changing, really. And it's an incredible boost of morale because the life of a novelist is very lonely. You work on your own for weeks, for a month, for years, without knowing whether the story you're working on means anything at all, without knowing if it's going to touch anyone's heart, you know. It's an act of faith.

It's a secular act of faith. And you keep going. So when the book is out, actually, it belongs to its readers. And when someone says, you know, I read your book and it touched my heart and this is what it meant to me, it's incredibly heartwarming. And when you are shortlisted, when you are nominated for such a great prize, I think it's hugely, hugely important for us, writers of all ages. Every book takes on a whole new life of its own in every single reader that it touches.

And it's so true that as a judge, you become so connected to these books because you read them over and over again, and they speak to your experiences. And obviously, every single judge has different experiences of the world, that their lives are different. And so they'll touch them in different ways. And you can't quantify that. You can't at all. And also, I think every reader's reading is going to be unique, and we have to respect that. I've met couples, actually, who've been married for 40 years, and they read the same book, but they don't read it in the same way. I've met friends who share everything.

They read the same book, but one of them loves it, maybe the other one not so much. Why? Because every reader brings their own gaze, their own story into the book. readers are not just passive receivers, right? I don't like it when writers try to preach or teach something or lecture. I don't like that at all. I want to question the hierarchy, you know. I don't know the answers myself.

What I do know is that I care about the questions. So I want to be able to ask questions in a novel. And I want to be able to ask questions about difficult subjects, too, including taboos. But then always you have to leave the answers to the readers. because every reader is going to come up with their own perspective. So the more prizes, the better. Exactly. Your fifth and final bookshelfy book today, this is a definite, this is on the list,

is a woman looking at men, looking at women by Siri Hustvet. A trailblazing and inspiring collection of essays on art, feminism, neuroscience and psychology. A woman looking at men, looking at women, brings together penetrating pieces on artists and writers, such as Picasso, Kiefer and Susan Sontag, as well as essays investigating the biases that affect how we judge art, literature and the world. This collection forms an extremely stimulating, thoughtful, wide-ranging exploration of some of the fundamental questions

about human beings and the human condition, delivered with Siri Hustvettes, customary lucidity, vivacity, and infectiously questioning intelligence. I mean, this book covers a broad range of topics, what drew you to it and what were you drawn to within it? Yeah, I love this book. I think Sirius Faith is an intellectual nomad, you know. She does travel across disciplines from neuroscience to, of course, comparative literature, to biology, but also to cultural studies, cinema, you know, psychology. There's a lot of psychology in this book. And this whole idea of, you know, a

women analyzing the way men look at women like layers upon layers, the ultimate observer, paying attention to even the smallest things, but then also connecting them. I am a huge believer in interdisciplinary conversations, and this is one of the best examples of that. She's a great thinker, but also she puts a lot of emotional intelligence out there. So it's the kind of book that brings the mind and the heart together. You mentioned that you loved her interdisciplinary perspective with a feminist heart beating at the centre. We've discussed intersectionality and the importance of and the history of. Tell me more about your relationship with the word feminist.

I think it's such a big part of what I am and how I see the world, but not as a word. I think it's how you connect with the world, how you connect with yourself, how have you connect with yourself, you connect with your fellow human beings. Why do I say this? Because I think at the heart of feminism is this search for justice, search for equality and a search for dignity. And these are very universal values that everyone needs. I think feminism is for everybody. Feminism is universal. It pains me to see that sometimes people speak as if feminism is, you know, achieved in some parts of the world and again in those parts of the world you don't need to worry as much for women's rights or LGBT-Q-plus rights or human rights in general but it's in other parts of the world

countries like where I come from where these issues become more acute you know and urgent I think that dualistic way of reading the world has to be shattered there's no such thing as solid countries versus liquid countries we are living in liquid times as the thinker Zygmund Baumann underlined a few years back. What I mean by that is we cannot take it for granted. You know, even the rights that we enjoy and are essential to us as women, from abortion rights to voting rights and many other rights, nothing is solid. Everything can go back and countries can go backwards very fast. Now, this is very important for us, especially for us feminists, because every case study shows throughout world history

that whenever countries go backwards and tumble into ultra-nationalism, populist authoritarianism, whenever and wherever democracies eroded, the very first rights, that will be taken away. Curbed, curtailed will be women's rights. That's the weakest link, and that will be attacked first. In the name of traditional family values, in the name of something, So it's already happening. Even in Europe, it's happening.

Even at home it's happening. So we need to be aware. And I think feminism for me is a call for equality, justice, dignity, sisterhood, solidarity. And it's a big part of my writing. And I hope my personality. A woman looking at men, looking at women, is your only non-fiction title on this list. But we started our chat by saying how we important. boards and it was for us to read across the board for both men to read fiction and for women to

read nonfiction. How come this is the one? This is the one you picked. I mean, fiction is where my heart beats, you know, but I do read really across the board. I usually read one work of fiction and one work of nonfiction at the same time. I like to read two books simultaneously. And I think our minds are always energized better when we dare to go out of our comfort zone. So it always intrigues me when, for instance, a film director reads poetry or a poet response to a movie or a political scientist reads poetry, etc. So can we just get out of our comfort zones a little bit? Those are the kind of conversations that I find more intriguing. Earlier we talked about how some people say, oh, I don't read fiction.

That makes me sad because I think inside fiction, there is everything that is inside life. So there is politics, there is technology, there is neuroscience, inside fiction, there is empathy. But ultimately, I think we benefit more intellectually but also spiritually if we can keep our reading lists as diverse as possible. When I say diverse, not only, I do not only mean fiction and nonfiction, but let's also read East and West, North and South, not only the same genre, not only the same geographical area, but let's try to be intellectual nomads. I think that's more precious. And on that journey, east to west, north to south, with fiction being where your heartbeats, where would you like your writing to take you next?

What's the next stop? I would like my writing to be a bridge builder. To the best of my ability, I would like my writing to bring together oral culture and written culture, but also different traditions of storytelling. Of course, as a storyteller, I love stories, I love language, I love the rhythm of language, but I think we're equally drawn to silences. That is a huge part of my work. You know, I want to give voice to people who have been pushed to the periphery, who have been left either voiceless or whose voices have been suppressed, silence throughout the centuries.

I think being a novelist, the way I describe it, is a bit like, you're a bit like an archaeologist, you know, a linguistic archaeologist. You have to dig deep and you have to look for the ruins and the remnants, the remains. If you're interested in the stories of women or the stories of minorities, you cannot only read written culture, mainstream narrative because you're not going to find them there, right? So you have to dig deep. Either we have to look into oral culture, including, you know, things that might seem unrelated, like superstitions, the culture of food, lullabies, myths, legends. There is a lot there. But also we have to dig deep into history to remember. the women and the minorities whose names, whose stories have been forsaken and forgotten and abundant.

So, yeah, I see myself as someone who searches, not stories only, but also silences. Well, Elif, I'm going to ask you one more question before we can just take a moment for ourselves in that silence, which I absolutely love. And my question is this, if you had to choose just one book from your list, from the books that you brought today, as a favourite and I know it's hard because it was hard to even narrow it down

to five and I'm going to say seven because there were two honorary mentions which would it be and why? I couldn't even reduce it to you know

I couldn't even choose five oh that's so hard I might go with Orlando I think yeah let's yeah let's choose Orlando okay oh well thank you so much

for taking the time to talk to today it's been honestly illuminating and such a beautiful chat. Thank you. I'm so grateful, really. Thank you so much for everyone. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.