The author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, our Monthly Spotlight title for July, talks about the authors who have inspired her, making the invisible visible, and her ‘slightly insane’ writing routine
Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels
Her 2019 novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize; and chosen as Blackwell’s Book of the Year. Her previous novel, The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by BBC as one of the 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. Shafak has been conferred Doctor of Humane Letters by Bard College in 2021. She is an honorary fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford University and was elected President of the Royal Society of Literature in December 2025. Her work has been translated into 57 languages.
All nominated books
An intensely beautiful and haunting novel from Elif Shafak about the wonder of life, the mystery of death and the strange space in between
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