Elif Shafak may just be my new favorite author

[mary-annef]

I was recently introduced to Elif Shafak and have just finished her "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World." It's a story of a Turkish prostitute told in the 10 minutes 38 seconds it takes for her brain to shut down after she is murdered and left in a trash can on an Istanbul street. I love the concept of a post-death storyteller. The book highlights some serious social issues and superbly captures the conflict between East and West that exists in Turkey. If you've visited Istanbul it will bring familiar scenery and faces flashing back to you. But mostly it's a beautiful story of the enduring friendship between Leila's group of misfit companions. They end up exhuming her body from the Cemetery of the Companionless to give her a resting place at the side of the love of her life. Funny, bitter and charming.


Shafak is the most widely read female author in Turkey and a women's rights activist and intellectual. I think she could well be my new most favorite author! Can anyone recommend which of her other books to read next?

[Cristina Chifane]

You could try Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules of Love. It's a novel about the special relationship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, but also about a woman's journey of self-discovery.

[mary-annef]

You could try Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules of Love. It's a novel about the special relationship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, but also about a woman's journey of self-discovery.

Wonderful, thanks!

[aby johnson]

Absolutely true. I have read only Forty Rules of love and i absolutely loved it. She has mixed fiction with facts and lovely emotions. The plot was kinda pulling me from the beginning itself and i loved the complete narration and the ending.

[Riya Sarkar]

You could try Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules of Love. It's a novel about the special relationship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, but also about a woman's journey of self-discovery.

I was going to suggest the same! The Forty Rules of Love was a surprisingly beautiful story which touched my heart like never before.

[Nimra Kiran]

Although, Shafak is known for her one of the best selling novel The Forty rules of Love. There are other outstanding works by her, that you should try. One of my favourites is, The Architect's Apprentice. It recounts the the horrific truths about the Royal history of Ottoman empire in the reign of Sultan Suleiman, later on Sultan Murad. An Indian mahout and apprentice in the midst of this empire, who is left with so many hardships, consequently learning alot in terms of life, love, spirituality and ways of his master, the great Master Sinan of the Ottoman Empire. His youth yearning for the love of his beloved.

"For apprentices everywhere; no one told us that love was the hardest craft to master.."

[Nimra Kiran]

Or else, try her latest novel The Island of Missing Trees, published in September 2021.

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.

Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited - her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.

A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.