Novelist Elif Shafak: ‘Writers are the memory keepers’

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elif Shafak’s new novel brings together four stories set in three different centuries: ancient Mesopotamia, 19th century London, a Yazidi village in 2014, and the present day. It connects them through the epic of Gilgamesh, and a single drop of fresh water. Making history come alive is one of Elif’s many talents, and today she shares her thoughts on how novels can fill in the gaps in authorised history. She also talks with Lilah about the importance of the unwritten word — and why she looks to oral traditions to make sense of the past.

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As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email Lilah at [email protected] or message her on Instagram @lilahrap.

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– Elif Shafak’s new novel There are Rivers in the Sky, is out now in the US and the UK

– Read the FT’s review of the book here: https://on.ft.com/4gC9cWd

– Lilah spoke with Elif about her previous novel The Island of Missing Trees and the stories we tell ourselves back in 2020. Listen to that interview here

Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos.
0:06.0	One of my very favorite interviews I've ever done was three years ago on this podcast with the author Elif Sheffach.
0:14.0	Elif is the celebrated writer of 13 novels and more than 20 books, and what I love about her work is that it makes the past feel very alive and makes the
0:24.6	past and the present feel very entwined.
0:27.6	It makes it feel like we're all part of the same history.
0:30.6	This was true of her last novel about Cyprus called the Island of Missing Trees, which we
0:35.6	talked about last time she was on the show.
0:39.4	And it's true of her newest one, too.
0:43.5	It's about Mesopotamia, and it's called There Are Rivers in the Sky.
0:50.7	What makes a leaf so wonderful the interview is that she's very willing to explore the themes, the politics,
0:55.6	and the nuanced questions that her novels bring up, which is very helpful as we all try to figure out how to understand the present in relation to the past. I'm thrilled to say
1:00.7	that Aleph was kind enough to join me again today. Elif, hi. What a joy to have you. Welcome
1:06.7	back to the show. What a joy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
1:10.3	Thank you for being here. I would love to start this conversation What a joy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here.
1:11.5	I would love to start this conversation with a quote that I loved from your newest book.
1:16.9	It's from a character who's a young Yazidi woman.
1:20.4	She's learning about her great-grandmother who was kind of a mystic, who she's never met.
1:25.1	And she thinks this, the world would have been a much more interesting
1:28.2	place if everyone was given a chance to meet their ancestors, at least for an hour in their
1:33.5	lifetime. So before we jump into your book, I want to ask you, you're from Turkey, you've lived all
1:39.3	over Europe, you're now a British citizen and live in London. There are a lot of parts to your identity.
1:45.6	There are a lot of parts to my identity.
	...

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