Elif Shafak - ‘There’s only one thing that scares me - and that’s indifference’

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0:36Welcome to How To Fail, the podcast that firmly believes you learn just as much from failure, if not more, than you do from success. Before we begin, I just want to remind you about my subscriber series, Failing With Friends, where every week my very special guests and I go through problems, failures, questions that you, our lovely listeners, have. And this week with the marvellous Alif Shafak. To everyone out there, here's a taster. This is the age of speedy consumption, you know, short attention span. Everything is just narrowed down to snippets of information, which I find dangerous because I think it's the exact opposite of knowledge.

1:18I would be thrilled to hear from you. Follow the link in the podcast notes to share your failures now. I just wanted to remind you that for the first time ever, How to Fail is going on tour and will be presented by Hey You, the home of reality TV. Each show, I'll have a very special guest sharing their three failures on stage so you can expect the usual uplifting, hilarious and moving conversations. Tickets are on sale now. Head to fein.co.uk or follow the link in the show notes.

1:53On the social media platform X, Alif Shafak describes herself as a storyteller, reader, learner, human rights advocate, feminist, introvert and citizen of humanity. On the first count, she's being modest. Not just a storyteller, Shafak has in fact published 19 books, 12 of which are novels, several of which have been shortlisted for major literary awards, including the Booker Prize. She's been translated into 57 languages and is an honorary fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford. Her 20th novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is published this August and is an epic tale of one lost poem, two great rivers and three remarkable lives, all connected by a single drop of water.

2:43Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, but was taken to Turkey by her mother after her parents separated. When her mother became a diplomat, Shafak moved around with her, including a spell at school in Madrid. This itinerant existence is perhaps why Shafak has always identified with the role of the outsider in her work, and also partly explains her extraordinary facility with language. She writes fluently in both Turkish and English. An outspoken critic of repressive regimes, her political activism has not come without cost. In 2006, she was put on trial for insulting Turkey after the publication of her book, The Bastard of Istanbul, which referenced the Armenian genocide.

3:29Had she not eventually been acquitted, Shafak would have faced a maximum prison sentence of three years. And yet, her belief in the power of stories to change the world remains more fervent than ever. As she wrote in her powerful 2020 manifesto, How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division, stories bring us together, untold stories keep us apart. Alif Shafak, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much. What a beautiful introduction. Thank you. Well, I'm so honored that you are sitting opposite me today. You are a personal inspiration of mine. And I know for many women and men across the world. And I wondered if I could begin by asking you quite a big question, which is whether you feel writing has always been a political act at some level for you.

4:26If you come from a country such as my motherland, Turkey, and you happen to be a storyteller, you don't have the luxury of saying, I'm only going to, you know, write my stories. I'm not going to be interested in what's happening outside the window. I am a feminist and I've learned lots of things from past generations of women's movement. And of course, one of the crucial things that they have been telling us is that wherever there's power, there is politics. In that regard, you might be writing about marriage or sexuality or, you know, seemingly unpolitical things, gender, identity, body. All of that can be quite political as well.

5:09So wherever there's inequality, some type of injustice, power imbalance, there's politics there. And in that regard, I think a novelist cannot be apolitical or nonpolitical. That doesn't mean, however, that politics is the guide. That doesn't mean that at all. For me, what matters is to be able to ask questions in my fiction and then leave the answers always to the reader, because every reader is going to come up with their own answers. And I have to respect that diversity. So I don't like the kind of fiction that tries to preach or teach or lecture at all. I don't know the answers myself. All I know is I care about the questions.

5:52including difficult questions. Some of those questions can be political questions. I really like this idea of fiction as dialogue and that it changes with every single individual reader. And I know that you've said in the past that you have readers who, for instance, might be homophobic, but they will say to you, oh, I loved this trans character you wrote. I love this gay person that you wrote. So in a way, that's part of your political activism, isn't it? Some of my readers in Turkey, for instance, they come from very, very conservative families. And so they grow up with a certain narrative. And if you ask these people in the public space, their opinions about minorities, about various identities, they might tell you lots of stereotypes, cliches, biases, and even dogmas.

6:39And yet some of those people come to my book signings and they say, I read this book and this is the character that I felt the most. And it always surprises me because the character they're talking about could be, can be Armenian or Kurdish or Jewish or gay or bi or trans, you know. So normal, when I say normally, generally in their daily life, maybe they're biased towards all these people. But when they're reading fiction, I think they're more ready to connect. That's what happens to us. because in our daily lives, we're always in the company of other people, that synchronized energy, and we just go along.

7:21But when we're reading a novel, we are alone. And in that space of solitude, we're more ready to open up our hearts and connect with the people that we've regarded as other. And then you realize, actually, the other is my brother. The other is my sister. I am the other, you know. I'm not that different. Those connections are very important for me. I wanted to ask you about the quality of your prose, because you're sometimes described as a magical realist novelist, and I'm not sure that that's quite right. I feel that it's more magical naturalism almost, because you embody nature in so many of your books.

7:59The Island of Missing Trees had a talking fig tree. There are rivers in the sky starts so beautifully with this single raindrop landing on the neck of a king. And we follow this drop of water and what it becomes. And that kind of embodiment of the natural world, how important is that to you? I love magical naturalist, you know, much more than magical realism. What I do know is that, for me, writing a novel is about connections. I mean, no one said it more eloquently than Umberto Eco, you know, when he talked about connections are everywhere. You do not have to invent them. You just have to see them, right, as a novelist.

8:40so life as I see it is always interconnected our destinies our stories are connected and it's a myth it's an illusion to think that there is the east there is the west these are the boxes where everyone has to stay you know and nature is the best teacher actually if we are interested in interconnectivity trees are the best teachers because both under the ground and above the ground And trees are so interconnected. I'm very tuned into ecofeminism. I like that. We see ourselves as the center of the universe. We have become consumers of nature rather than seeing ourselves as part of an ecosystem.

9:22We're neither inferior nor superior. And everything in that ecosystem matters. So rather than understanding the importance of living as part of a circle of life, we have started to believe that we're above everything else. And that just turned us into consumers. And I think it's ruining, ruining the planet. Tell us about the inspiration for your new novel, because we were chatting before we started recording and you live next to the River Thames. So how much was the inspiration for this novel, that fact of geography? River Thames was a big, big inspiration for me. I love water. I think I love listening to water.

10:06I know it's going to sound weird, but just sitting by the water and trying to think. I appreciate such things. But I've also been thinking a lot about the River Tigris and the River Euphrates, which are the main rivers in the part of the world where I come from, which is today regarded as the Fertile Crescent. It's a fascinating geography. Unfortunately, in today's world, it's associated with maybe not wealth or big culture and all of that. But actually, when you go back in time, this was the center of major, major civilizations. This is a land that has gone through, again, massive ecological crisis.

10:51And today, when you look at the rivers and their stories, these rivers are drying up. And when rivers dry, this has massive political, social, cultural consequences. Women are the carriers of water. So wherever there is a water crisis, because climate crisis is primarily fresh water crisis, it affects primarily the lives of women and children. Women now have to walk longer distances in order to fetch water. And they're more subject to gender violence, etc. If you care about gender violence, then you must care about racial injustice. If we care about racial injustice, then we care about also class and regional imbalances and so on.

11:35So all I'm trying to say is those connections are very important. And the Middle East and North Africa are very susceptible to climate crisis and water crisis at the moment. Of the 10 major countries that are experiencing acute water crisis, seven are in the part of the world where I come from. So I think I feel very connected to the story of water. I wanted to write a novel that on us a single drop of water. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by how much suffering and injustice there is in the world? And do you ever not know what to say about it? Absolutely, absolutely. You know, there are some days when I feel so overwhelmed by anxiety.

12:21Don't we all? I mean, we feel angst. I think this is the age of existential angst. Some days we feel angry because there's so much going on in the world and it breaks our hearts. Other days maybe we feel depressed. This fatigue, you know, almost just getting out of bed is difficult. And all of that is okay. I think what is not okay is to try to sweep all these emotions under the carpet and to think that emotions are a source of weakness. Every emotion, even those that seem negative at first glance, are actually a source of energy. so it's okay to feel these things it shows that we're human it shows that we care you know that we're not numb there's only one thing that scares me a lot and that's numbness that's indifference the moment we become desensitized you know when we don't when we stop caring I think that is a very difficult threshold but anger angst depression fatigue all of these are so human the crucial thing is what do we do with that source of energy?

13:25And Toni Morrison, she has this beautiful essay, she says, some days I feel so angry, you know, and then I go and sit down, I sit at my desk, and I write. So I love that. That's what she does with her anger. Maybe someone else turns it into music. Another person plants, you know, trees. What do we do with our emotions, I think, is the crucial question. We're talking at a time when many people with significant social media followings of which you are one, are under a lot of pressure to make public proclamations, particularly about the genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people after the terrorist acts of October the 7th.

14:04And you have been someone who has been brave enough to use your voice for that. And I suppose I just wanted to ask your advice about how you navigate that with the public profile. I'm aware that asking this question comes fraught with complexity, because so often whatever we say is taken out of context, only short clips are listened to and not the whole conversation which comes redolent with nuance. But I just want to ask you, Alif, how you navigate all of that. What's your take on this? Yeah, I think we all, each one of us, we find it so difficult to navigate, especially social media, the digital space, because unfortunately it has become a space where there's no room for nuances or having longer conversations.

14:52Everything is just narrowed down to almost slogans, especially on Twitter. We have to talk about the major tragedy, humanitarian catastrophe that is taking place in Gaza as we're speaking right now. We're talking about mass starvation. We're talking about famine. We're talking about there's 155 ,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers on the edge of starvation. And we're talking about women and children and civilians suffering immensely. How do we find the language that serves peace and coexistence? How do we make it clear that we are against all forms of violence, you know, perpetrated against all human beings?

15:45How do we put humanity first? And how do we empathize and how do we care? I think these are very, very crucial questions and we cannot remain silent to what's happening in Gaza at this moment. Talking of the importance of people brings us on to your first failure. And Selena, my wonderful producer, said when she received Alif's failures, I think these are the most beautiful failures I've ever read. And they really are so exquisite and so beautifully nuanced in the way that you've written them that I almost feel I'm betraying you by asking you to talk about them. But maybe we'll put the full essay somewhere.

16:29Your first failure is to do with your father. Can you tell us the story? Yes, I was born in France, in Strasbourg. My father at the time, he was pursuing his PhD in philosophy, if I'm not mistaken. And they were very young, both of them. My mother had dropped out of university thinking love was enough, you know, and she had come to France with my father. When the marriage failed, I think my mother felt a little bit helpless because she had no diploma, no career, no money, nothing to fall back on. So what happened was my father stayed in France. He got married again. He had another family. And my mother brought me to Turkey because for her, Turkey was home.

17:19But for me, it was a new country completely. So we came to Ankara to my grandmother's house. This was a very conservative, very patriarchal and inward looking neighborhood. And I think I always felt like we were the odd ones out. Women in my mother's situation, like a young divorcee, they would immediately be married off, usually to someone older. And this is what the neighbors were trying to do. But it was my grandmother who intervened. My grandmother who had not been given a proper education, you know, for being a girl, she had been pulled out of school. So she said that my mother should go back to college and she should graduate, she should have a diploma, career, choices.

18:02And when people said, yes, but she has a child to take care of, my grandmother said, I will take care of my granddaughter until her mother is ready. And that changed our life. So I was raised by grandma until I was 10 years, 11 years old. And my mother eventually graduated with, you know, flying colors. And afterwards, we lived in Spain, Jordan, because she started to work as an attache. I think there's an absence of love in my life because from my father, I did not receive any love. He almost never connected with me as I was growing up. And this created a lot of confusion on my part. And I think for a long time, I felt like it was my failure.

18:48And the reason I started to think that way is because around the time I was a teenager, I realized that I had half brothers or half siblings because I didn't know their gender at the time. I didn't know anything about their family. I had never been invited to my father's house. I don't have any pictures with my father except one picture probably that was taken as a baby. I don't have memories with my father. But when I later on in my 20s, I met my brothers. One of them, purely by coincidence, and the other one came to my book signing. And that was a very, very awkward moment, you know, interesting moment, because he came and he said, you know, I'm your brother, and he brought a book for me to sign.

19:37And for a moment, I didn't know what to write. And later on, we became good, good friends. He's a very, very gentle soul. But I think what shook me was to learn from them, especially from my younger brother, that my father had been a very good father to them. That part was very difficult for me to comprehend. Because I guess in my mind, I had thought all that vacuum, because you try to fill in a void, you know. I filled in with this narrative in my mind. I didn't think he was a bad person. But I thought maybe he didn't have the capacity for empathy, for love, for compassion, for fatherhood. But when you realize that he had been a very good father to his sons, then you feel very confused.

20:23Because how come a father can celebrate, for instance, my younger brother's birthday, coincidentally, is the day after my birthday. And he told me how every year, you know, that he had celebrated his birthday with so much care and love. The day before is my birthday. He never celebrated mine. So, you know, you don't understand how can a father disconnect like that. And I think for a long time in my early youth, I felt angry and I felt like, you know, as if it was my failure. Like I was the other child. I always felt like the other. You speak of your father in the past tense. Is he no longer alive?

21:03Yeah, he passed away several years back. And I'm sad about that because, you know, there are lots of things that felt that we couldn't say to each other. Nonetheless, later on in life, I connected with him. I tried to communicate with him. I also invited him to our house because I wanted him to meet his grandchildren. Because I think that's the problem, you know, when people are angry at each other or somehow something is broken, let's say, between my parents, you should not reflect that to your child. I think the child is an individual, right? So I wanted him to connect with my children as individuals.

21:45Whatever happened between us or could not happen, that void should not affect his relationship with them. So I tried to mend to the best of my ability. He tried to mend as well. But of course, some things remained broken.

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23:12let's talk about how much stories provided a refuge for you in this childhood with very strong maternal energy but yet possibly a sense of confusion about where you belonged and going to school in Madrid and I understand you always felt like an outsider there it was a bad time to be a Turk. And stories provided a kind of shelter, didn't they? They always did, actually. I had a very lonely childhood. And it was books that showed me that there were other worlds, other possibilities. For me, writing is almost a transcendental experience. You know, I have a lot of respect for authors who start from a more autobiographical point of view.

23:56But for me, fiction is not necessarily autobiographical. What I'm more interested in is becoming someone else and looking at the world through their eyes, going beyond the boundaries of the self that has been given to me by birth. I want to transcend that. And art enables that or facilitates that. I think books made me feel less lonely. And when I moved to Madrid from my grandmother's very conservative neighborhood, suddenly you end up in a very international school, where again, I did not fit in. I think again, it was books that helped me because this time, there was an additional element of alienation.

24:37You need to learn languages fast, you need to learn Spanish very fast, English very fast. There's always a gap between you and the others. You're trying to keep up, you're trying to catch up, but always feel like you're failing. That immigrant experience is something that I started learning from an early age onwards. and once again I think it was the world of imagination, the land of story land that helped me to balance my own anxieties at the time. There is a character in your novel who is a nine-year-old girl called Naren living in Turkey whose father is absent for various reasons. How much do you think, I mean you mentioned there that fiction for you provides a way, an entry point to other people's souls.

25:25How much are you writing your own relationship with your father in a quest to understand him? I think my experience, my journey or lack of journey with my father shaped my fiction in a slightly different way. it helped me to understand that human beings are very complex. Someone might be a very good academic, someone or might be a very good politician, but they might be a very bad husband or they might be a great husband, but they might fail in another area of their life. They might be a very bad father, maybe to one child or another child. So it's actually very, very layered, very complex. This helped me to understand when I started thinking in this way, I maybe became a bit more, I don't want to say kind, but my anger disappeared because I was very angry at my father and the anger wasn't helping me at all.

26:28It is a big burden to carry anger inside. And the thing about anger is it's high energy. It keeps it going, you know, and one might enjoy their anger, But in the long run, anger becomes very toxic and it starts to poison the soul. To think of human beings in a different way and to try to understand my father as best as I could, also to try to understand myself, my own failures or my own layers, you know, helped me perhaps as a fiction writer to approach fictional characters in a different way. I love nuanced characters. I do not like one-dimensional. I think as a novelist, you're always interested in, you know, there are moments when a courageous person is afraid.

27:18There are moments when a person who's very timid suddenly becomes brave. It's always those contrasts that as a novelist you're interested in. And these things happen in life, that dialectical, I love the dance between sorrow and humour, which exists in every person in different degrees. So all I'm trying to say is I think my relationship with my father hopefully helped me to approach fictional and real life characters in a much more nuanced way. What a perfect answer. Just a couple more questions on this particular failure. One is that I understand your grandmother, as well as being this incredibly before her time kind of woman who was really passionate about female education, had a spiritual side and she read coffee cups.

28:08Yes. Did she ever read yours? She would read coffee cups. But the good thing about reading coffee cups is actually it's in the moment. So it's not like palm reading or anything else. It's not like destiny reading or anything like that. And that's what I loved about her approach because it was very water-like. It was very fluid. It was open to change. This is who you are. This is how you feel right now. And you can always change if you're not happy with how you feel right now, right? So it's a more river-like approach, cup reading. And her house was full of superstitions, spirituality, not in a very religious way, interestingly.

28:48Maybe I'm always interested in faith and I'm interested in doubt as well. I never want to separate them. I think too much faith without doubt scares me because it becomes a dogma and I think dogmas are dangerous. But complete certainty of maybe doubt without elements of faith also scares me. I think I like agnostics or mystics who are a bit more like misfits, you know, walking a very thin line between faith and doubt, sometimes failing. I always felt close to people who can say, I don't know. I really don't know the answer. My final question on this is, I know that there will be lots of listeners who really relate to what you're talking about and have less than ideal relationships with one parent.