Forum for European Philosophy Literary Festival event
Date: Friday 18 February 2011
Time: 7-8.30pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Elif Shafak
Chair: Professor Sevket Pamuk
Storytelling is an ancient and universal art at the heart of which lies the need to imagine and the ability to empathize with others. In a world beset with cultural clashes, misunderstandings and invisible ghettoes, stories keep connecting us across worlds, across words. Women have always been great storytellers in my country, and yet the written culture is still "a man's world". Why do fewer women write even though they compose the majority of fiction readers today? How can stories connect us across boundaries-- be it national, religious or gender boundaries.
Elif Shafak is a Turkish writer and the best-selling female novelist in Turkey. She has published novels written in Turkish as well as English, including The Bastard of Istanbul which was longlisted for the Orange prize. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages around the world. Shafak's work blends Western and Eastern traditions of storytelling to generate a fiction that is both local and universal. Her work draws on diverse cultures and literary traditions, as well as deep interest in history, philosophy and oral culture. Shafak's writing has been defiant of bigotry and xenophobia, deeply involved in feminism, Sufism, individualism and Ottoman culture, with 'a particular genius for depicting backstreet Istanbul'. Official website www.elifshafak.com
This event forms part of the Forum for European Philosophy's European Questions- Turkish Angles series on 'Europe's Literature' jointly organized with the LSE Chair in Contemporary Turkish studies and will be followed by a complimentary drinks reception, sponsored by Garanti Bank.
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