Monday, February 03, 2020

Six top books to help us through tough times

Elif Shafak / Elif Şafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels, including the bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, and Three Daughters of Eve. In 2017 she was chosen by Politico as one of the twelve people who would make the world better.

Shafak's latest novel is 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

Shafak is also a political scientist and an academic. She holds a degree in International Relations, a masters’ degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and a PhD in Political Science and Political Philosophy. She has taught at various universities in Turkey, the UK and the USA, including St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow.

At the Guardian, Shafak tagged six works full of wisdom, heart and hope to help us through tough times, including:
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s first novel, The Water Dancer, is a remarkable story about inequality, slavery, memory, freedom and dignity. I found it important and universally relevant. Read Etgar Keret’s short stories in Fly Already, not only for their brilliant language and imagination, but the depth of Keret’s craft. Jeanette Winterson’s Courage Calls to Courage Everywhere is a slim volume with a big heart. It will provide us with the energy we need as we walk the long road ahead to attain true gender equality.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue