Alif Shiffak has a way of writing that's lush that's that's enchanted because what she does is she writes about real things in the world water houseboats [music] whatever it is and things that are ordinary that we stop seeing and she infuses them with life and wonder so that we can see the world fresh again.
Alif has written more than 21 books and she's the president of the Royal Society of Literature which has had fellows like Jared Tolken, Rard Kipling, WB Yates, Marvin Atwood.
And you'll notice that her writing advice is different from what you normally hear.
She wants to help you splash your personality onto the page.
How to write with soul and how to unlock your wild, wild imagination to do it day in and day out until you're left with a finished piece of writing.
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>> You know, genre names can be kind of unhelpful and kind of annoying, but I think that magical realism is actually a pretty good genre title. Okay.
Because I think that it explains your work and what I admire about it, which is taking the ordinary and almost making it enchanted or filling it with wonder.
And you know, I was thinking kind of really paying attention to how I felt as I was reading your work.
And it made me realize just how closed off we get to the world that we live in.
And we stop seeing all the mysteries that are inside of it.
And what I just really admire about how you go about your craft is that you inject enchantment back into the world.
And so that's what I want to talk about today.
>> Well, I I so appreciate your words, you know. Thank you.
Um maybe I might have a slight disagreement about the the concept magical realism. >> Great.
>> Only because and I wonder if if it's if it will make sense to you what I'm saying, but only because um when I think of life, when I think of the city of Istanbul, for instance, if I may give you an example, Istanbul is not a city that says, "Okay, this is the box of the east.
This is the box of the west."
It does not say this is the category of humor and this is the category of sadness or here's the magic part and here's the reality part. Right?
What it does instead is it combines everything constantly in the wildest way possible.
So it's a city of so many contrasts but everything condensed sometimes in one moment in one scene.
For instance, in Istanbul, you might come across a very sad moment, but underneath there's a layer of absurd.
Uh, I wouldn't call it funny perhaps, but you know, the the humor that comes with absurd or the opposite, there's such a funny moment, but underneath, my goodness, there's so much sorrow.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is in my mind, I do not separate these categories like here's the domain of magic and here's the domain of reality.
Uh that's my only opposition >> to the term magical realism because it assumes that there's a duality whereas I think in life there is magic in every moment every breath there's magic also in this room and I'm longing maybe for another word another category to describe my work and the works of many other writers. >> Yeah.
I think that what happens though is we go about our lives and things become like our left brain takes over.
things become about utility.
They become about definitions, about categories.
And rather than seeing the beauty and the wonder in objects, you stop seeing that.
And I think a lot of times when people try to reinject magic or wonder into whatever it is, you get into the realm of cliche or things feel cheesy.
And so, how do you not do that?
Well, I think at the end of the day as writers, we need to follow our intuition, our heart, and the moment we start thinking about what will people say, how they're going to react, are the readers going to like this, are the editors going to like this, um, that is really a very dangerous road.
And I say this as a Turkish writer who had to deal with a lot of nonsense when my books have been published.
you know, some sometimes I've been prosecuted, investigated, targeted.
So, if I start thinking about what the reaction to the story that I'm writing will be like, probably I won't be able to write.
And therefore, for me as a novelist, the best way forward is to remain inside that imaginary world that I am constructing and to believe in it with all my heart.
So really those characters become my friends.
become my friends. uh that imaginary world becomes my reality only when the book is done and I give it to my editor then I can have panic attacks as to what people might say yeah but it's too late the book is born and it's free it's free
of worries the way it should be so I guess all I'm trying to say is all these adjectives that we use you know the labels that we use the categories that we use all of that happens later but within the process of writing you need to keep it as pure as independent as free as you can. >> The biggest lie that writers will tell
>> The biggest lie that writers will tell themselves is, "Ah, I'll remember that later." No.
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All right, let's get to the interview.
So, can you take me to month four?
for month five, you're in a novel.
The characters have become your friends.
You've created this imaginary world.
Take me to the what's going on in your life?
Like what's any given Tuesday like?
And what are you feeling?
What are you experiencing? What are you thinking?
>> Well, no two days are exactly the same.
Um, and with all due respect, I think sometimes um, it's only a small number of writers of a certain age perhaps or a background who are very proud of their precise schedules.
But for all the rest of us, what we are doing is we're juggling, aren't we?
Like everyone else does in every other um, profession.
The difference is of course uh unlike many other professions when you're a writer this is not a job.
You don't leave it behind the door.
You know you don't do it 9 to5.
It's with me day and night. It seeps into my dreams.
Um so I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't have precise schedules but what I do every day is I read.
What I do every day is I take notes.
It doesn't mean that every note that I take will go into a book and it doesn't mean that everything that I write when I'm writing a book will be uh in the final cut.
Um so there's a lot of deleting and erasing as well.
But what I'm trying to say is there's a continuity of reading, researching, learning and writing.
Um but in terms of precise schedules, I don't believe in those because we're mothers.
We are we have many other responsibilities.
So we carve out a space for ourselves.
If I cannot write in the day, I will write at night.
If I cannot write at night, then I will try to do it the next morning.
But that that's always my my passion.
>> You feel like you write differently during the day versus the night.
>> The night is in interesting. I'm I'm nocturnal.
>> Yeah, I like the night.
Um although as we get older, I think it becomes a bit more difficult to work long hours at night, but I've always liked working at night. >> Mhm.
How do you feel like the work is different?
>> I think you have more time to listen to this the the voices coming from the page.
That said, I'm speaking with a little bit of caution because I don't like extreme silence.
I cannot work in silence.
I feel very uncomfortable when there's too much silence around me.
Maybe it is the impact of Istanbul on me because I lived in a very noisy neighborhood which was even noisier at night than during the day.
But I usually put on my headphones.
I usually choose a heavy metal song, >> which I think is absolutely hilarious that you listen to heavy metal. [laughter] >> Yeah.
[clears throat] So, >> who do you like?
>> I'm a I'm a metal head.
I've always been a metal head since my early youth. It never abandoned me. >> That's so cool.
>> But what has changed over the years is I think I move towards subg genres of heavy metal.
So, I usually listen to melodic death metal.
I love industrial metal, a bit more Gothic metal core.
I like many Nordic bands, um, Scandinavian bands, but I'm also very open to discovering many bands from all over the world.
Um, and it's such an amazing scene or kingdom, I should say, the the that of the heavy metal world because it's so dynamic, so creative, always new bands are coming.
So when I like a song that speaks to me in that moment, I can listen to that song on repeat uh maybe 70 or 80 times, it becomes a loop.
Uh I don't jump from one song to the next.
I stay with that song and it becomes like circles and circles and that's how I zoom in and zoom out and then I'm in a different place. >> No, explain.
What's the point of the heavy metal?
Is it that you like the music?
Is it that it makes it more you more generative? What's going on there?
I think heavy metal is so honest.
It's so raw, you know, it's all about raw emotions.
And I love the dialectics, the the contrasts, particularly in melodic death metal.
Um, you know, the clean uh vocals with the contrast, a bit more gut, the harshness, um, the intensity of it, it's it's not pretentious. It is what it is.
And actually I think it's a myth to believe that to think that people who listen to this kind of music are aggressive souls.
Many metal heads are actually very gentle souls including many many metal musicians, heavy metal musicians.
Um so I think it's always been a genre that spoke to me and when I listen to this kind of music maybe I feel calmer.
>> Can definitely definitely relate to that.
I actually find I feel often the most calm and the most busy busy environments.
Um, but that's not where I want to go here.
You were talking about writing from the heart.
>> Can you explain to me what that means?
The difference between the mind and the heart.
There are different personalities and what it feels like to pull from the heart.
>> You know, again, I'm a little bit cautious because at the end of the day, we use these words in a in a very narrow way.
You know how do we differentiate the mind?
Where does the heart start? Where does the gut end? Right?
The human being is much more complicated and everything is interconnected.
Of course, but um for the sake of this maybe building an argument, I can tell you that the mind the the rational mind I think has always more constraints.
It's more aware of identity politics.
It's more aware of boxes. it's more anxious.
Whereas the heart particularly our ability to empathize with others is definitely so much bigger, broader uh and deeper.
So I want to make the heart my guide.
Um but also I want to share with you maybe one more point.
I think broadly speaking there are two different ways of writing a novel.
Um in the one the the writer is a bit like an engineer.
you know, you want to have a have a great plot.
You want to construct everything.
You want to know how the characters are going to behave beforehand.
So, in a way, the author is in charge, in control, and there's a lot of cerebral activity going on.
I have a lot of respect for authors who write that way, but it's not my way.
I like the second way in which you write with your intuition.
You're a little bit drunk.
You don't quite know what you're doing. you take risks.
You know, you don't know what that character is going to do in the next five chapters or you allow a side character to take over.
Um, and you're you're you're more uh lost inside the text as an author.
You're not above the text.
But for me to be able to feel that kind of confidence and take the plunge because you're literally jumping into something without quite knowing what you're doing.
For me to be able to feel that kind of confidence, I do a lot of learning beforehand.
So I read a lot, I research a lot and I listen a lot.
Uh I try to become a learner in life.
>> Tell me about listening. What do you mean?
>> Well to me this is very important.
I think writers, we writers need to be two things. Excuse me. All our lives.
We need to be good readers and we need to be good listeners.
Um read when I say good readers I believe our reading lists should be eclectic.
Let's read anything and everything that speaks to us.
>> So good readers isn't just read the classics, the donskis. No, read everything. >> Let read everything.
I mean definitely let's read the classics.
Let's read dtoski and you know toolsto and many others.
But if there's a particular book that speaks to us in that moment in time, let us not say oh is this highbrow literature?
Is it lowbrow literature?
Who makes those distinctions?
You know where do those dualities come from?
I think graphic novels are amazing.
They open up our imagination.
I think cookbooks are amazing.
You know, they tell us so much about cultures.
But equally, let's read political philosophy.
Let's read, you know, neuroscience, water science.
Let's have interdisciplinary conversations.
Let's keep the curiosity of the mind alive.
I've always believed in being intellectual nomads.
We shouldn't have comfort zones.
I think the mind is always more nourished when we dare to leave our comfort zones.
So for instance, when a novelist becomes interested in neuroscience or when a scientist is drawn to poetry or when a poet falls in love with film theory or when a director is interested in political philosophy, you know that those moments I think are the best when our mind is open to learning.
our mind is open to learning. And by listening what I mean is not everything is found in written culture and there's so much knowledge in this world that is transferred through oral storytelling ballads folktales legends riddles we
should not belittle that world to the best of my ability I would love my work to bridge written culture and oral culture >> and then also with listening there's a lot that is shared that isn't spoken that you can hear when you're really listening carefully. Like one of the
Like one of the things that if you really listen to somebody, what they don't say is as important as what they do say.
And you would think of listening as when they're going, but sometimes the pause actually tells you more than anything that they actually said.
>> Yeah, that is absolutely so true.
I mean, when I listen to people, I try to listen to two things.
what they're telling me, of course, but how they're saying what they're saying.
You know, the the the choice of words, the pauses, the silences, and I think those are just as important.
Again, particularly if you happen to be a storyteller from a country like Turkey where we have lots of silences, lots of ruptures.
I've always believed that you can't only be interested in stories as a writer.
You also you also need to start paying attention to silences.
Um and in that sense maybe being a novelist is a bit like a linguistic cultural archaeologist.
You have to dig deep through layers of memory and amnesia you know stories and silences.
You're talking about listening and I want to get into characters in terms of what makes a character believable in terms of their strengths and their weaknesses in terms of how they look, how they act, how they feel, and in terms of how they speak.
>> And it's so hard to categorize these things, but there's a felt sense of what makes a person real vers.
And I would imagine that it requires a deep listening to have a intuitive sense for when a character feels true versus false. >> Yes.
I I think how we connect with characters is a is a big part of the writing writing process.
But if I may perhaps add this, I I've never believed in heroes.
Like I've never believed in absolutely brave, absolutely good characters or or it's seeming opposite.
I think as human beings we're all on a some type of spectrum and maybe as a writer I'm always intrigued by that moment when a um timid person suddenly shows courage or a very brave person there comes a moment when they're so scared those are the things that draw my attention a lot and also the the change in our characters we're all going through a metamorphosis I mean oid of got this so right uh at a very early time.
But it's those transformations, those metamorphosis that I'm always drawn to and and the periphery, if I may put it in these terms, more than the center, I think I'm more interested in the periphery, more than the seen, what remains unseen, more than what's heard, the unheard has always called me. Mhm.
So then when you're thinking about the change, the transformation in a character, you were talking about how writing for you is more intuitive.
It's it's not so planned.
Are there times when you're thinking through that change deliberately?
Like what happens when it's not working?
You're like, "Oh, I'm trying here, but there's something off about this." Like what do you do?
Do you kind of descend into I'm going to have the imagination fix this or is it like a let's map this out.
Let's see what's going on.
I think it doesn't matter whether it's your first book, fifth book, you know, 10th novel.
We always and always go through valleys of anxiety, mountains of depression.
This is not a linear steady progress.
um and doubt and self-doubt.
They're big parts of the writing journey.
That's what I learned over the years.
One week you might feel like, "Okay, I got this.
I'm writing an amazing story. It's going to be great."
And then the next week you're crawling on the floor and everything you've written previously is so bad. You just chuck it away.
Um so that that that also happens.
And I'm not saying that there isn't any planning, there isn't any plot or structure.
Of course, those things are incredibly important.
For instance, when I was writing There are rivers in the sky, literally I had to hold these three story lines in my hands at the same time.
So, it's not like I finished one story line and then I started another and then I started another that were written simultaneously.
So, it felt like weaving a braid, you know, like a hair braid.
Uh, and that requires a lot of thinking, taking notes, you know, your arrows.
But I guess what I'm trying to say essentially is that you have to trust also your intuition and you have to also understand that we don't control everything as writers.
This is not a completely rational process.
I'm not denying the existence of reason and intellectual activity.
But sometimes as you keep writing you discover a lot about yourself, you know.
So there's a self-discovery as well.
There's an irrational element as well.
That's what I'm trying to say.
It's a much more complicated process. >> Yeah.
I spent um I spent last week with some of my friends kids.
We're just hanging out at Disney World for a few days.
And you know, kids always want you to tell them a story, right?
>> And I was reflecting on the time with kids cuz I just I like hanging out with kids.
I've always gotten along with them well.
And one of the things I've noticed is I'm in a real state of play.
Like I'm just kind of imagining and just kind of going with the flow, doing whatever.
I don't feel like I think in the same way.
And it's funny because when you're in that state of mind, stories kind of can flow out of you.
If you're in that state of play and you're kind of surprised by what you can come up with and sometimes once you try to plan the thing, once you try to, hey, let me, you know, press this person, the mind just goes numb. >> Yeah, absolutely.
I I it really resonates with me everything you said.
That's why I believe we writers, we're a mess in our daily lives.
you know, we're full of anxieties and this and that, but when we sit down and when we start writing, we become wiser, >> you know, not because we're wise in our daily lives, but because we tap into something that is bigger than us, that is older than us, and that is definitely wiser than us.
And what we tap into is this ancient and universal, timeless and placeless art of storytelling. It's so old.
It doesn't belong to a single ethnicity, class, region, religion.
It really belongs to all humanity.
And I think as human beings, we're all storytelling creatures.
Not only that, we're story remembering creatures.
>> Yes, >> that is so interesting.
What we remember of the past is often it just goes hand inhand with emotions and stories.
Those are the things that remain so deeply within us.
And again, neuroscience explains those connections in the mind between emotions, memories, and stories.
So, I think we just have to tap into that beautiful old ancient art of storytelling.
>> You were talking about the braided fish tank and you have a way with metaphors and analogies.
I don't actually quite know the difference. Then there's simileies.
One is like like or as but whatever, you understand what I'm saying.
And I highlighted this one.
It had been drizzling since the early hours, clouds hanging over the city, the color of a neglected fish tank.
>> And that seems to be in terms of all the things that I like about your writing, one of the things that you do best.
And now that I'm thinking about it, what a good metaphor can do is two things.
The first is it can help you see something that might be hard to see.
And the second is it puts a kind of emotional hue on whatever it is that you're describing that we can innately feel. Mhm. No, I so appreciate.
I think, you know, the senses uh to activate all the senses, it's so important for me.
Um when I was writing 10 minutes 38 seconds in the strange world, there's a reason why I'm mentioning this book.
The character, we know right away she's dead, the the very first page, but her brain is active and alive for a few more minutes after the heart has stopped beating.
So within those limited minutes as she remembers her past uh the question for me as a writer was how do you remember and I think we often remember via smells tastes of course Marcel P he wrote about this better than anyone could.
It's a very central theme to literature sometimes you dip your you know cookie or mudlin into a cup of tea and that takes you back to your childhood.
It takes you back to your grandmother and so on.
But my point is the senses, they're so important.
So how we see, how we taste, how we hear the sound of the universe, everything is alive.
>> Do you find that some senses are easier to activate than other ones?
Um I feel like when I'm writing my you know those senses are more active.
Um whereas of course in my in our daily life the rational mind takes over but when you're writing and that's one of the many reasons why I love literature so much and I always associate it with freedom in our daily lives.
lives. If we say well I was drinking a glass of water and then the water spoke to me people will think you've gone bonkers right >> but in our in in in in fiction you can say well actually this drop of water has a story to tell you know it has been
traveling since time eternal we haven't discovered any new sources of water it's the same drops of water in the river Mississippi the river gange or the river TS or the Euphrates the same drops of water circulating over over and over the same water that we have in our bodies. One of us might have shed us tears uh or
One of us might have shed us tears uh or the same water that we drink in our glass.
So my point is you can tell a story and you're not stopped by the rational logical mind because there's more to the world.
There's more to the universe we're living in. >> Yeah.
I mean you do a beautiful job with it in water.
collected three three sentences.
The first is that you wrote for unlike humans, water has no regard for social status or royal titles.
>> Water is the consmate immigrant trapped in transit, never able to settle.
And my favorite one, water hardens in adverse circumstances, not unlike the human heart.
And there was another one now that we're talking about it is you had this description of water is falling and it was almost like the water has fallen from the sky but hasn't landed on a tree almost as if it hasn't decided where it's going to land and all of a sudden you're just thinking of water and water is just infused with this enchantment and this range of what it could be.
It's like spreading out your imagination and I'm sitting there reading it and I'm like how does she get there?
Like I don't understand how your mind got there.
It kind of makes me a little tearary cuz it's so like it's so beautiful, you know. >> Thank you. Thank you.
That really means a lot to me.
I think it's it's at the heart of the art of storytelling.
It's not something that I do personally.
We're all born into, you know, a box of identity.
We're born into one place in time, one religion, one ethnicity or this or that.
And we're so used to looking at the world from that angle, from that window.
This is what we are taught. Right. Right.
>> But art and literature, they hold us by the hand and they say, "Come with me.
Let's see what's beyond that box."
Uh, and that's why I I passionately believe in this.
It's a pity that we usually emphasize the autobiographical element aspect of literature.
And please don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for that.
I have >> What do you mean when will you say that?
[clears throat] What I mean is um when we teach creative writing in so many workshops the very first thing that is being taught to students is write what you know and people then start thinking understandably they say well then I need to write about what happened to me you
know what what's my story and again there are so many amazing wonderful works of literature that started from that point so this is not a criticism at all I have a lot of respect for autobiographical books But where I criticize, where I disagree is literature cannot be solely reduced to the autobiographical. It is more than that. So there's also It is more than that.
So there's also transcendental or what I call transcendental aspect to it.
And by that I mean sometimes you tell your story but sometimes it's not about your story, it's about the other.
You become the other and then you become another another.
And you keep making these journeys.
This to me is so important.
You try to go beyond those boxes.
You try to dismantle the dualities.
And then you realize the person I regarded as my other is actually my brother.
You know, my sister is me. I am the other.
You know, there's not not much difference.
So, it just dissolves those dualities.
That aspect of literature is so crucial to me.
To what level >> do you feel like you sometimes become another character like you become Arthur?
Like I am actually that person you know like it's on Halloween if you're see someone who's really in costume they talk like the person and for a second it's almost as if they actually are Thomas Jefferson or Amelia Heheart or whoever it is.
To what level do you feel like you become >> that person?
Yeah, I do I do feel like I become that person because otherwise I cannot write about that person.
Um, but that said, you also need to hear the relatively smaller characters in your heart or those characters that might not look very nice.
You need to try to understand.
This is not about judgment.
We are not judging our characters. We try to understand.
Equally, you need to understand a tree.
Sometimes I I wish you had seen my my agent's face when I told him >> this there's a talking tree >> years ago.
I said, "I'm writing a, you know, this new novel and there's going to be a tree in it and this tree is going to talk."
And I saw for a moment this flicker of panic and anxiety in his in his eyes, which I understand, of course.
He's very supportive always, but he he was worried for a moment and I was worried too because, you know, if you have a talking tree inside a literary novel and if it doesn't work, the whole thing collapses.
The whole structure collapses.
But I believed in that tree.
I heard that voice inside my mind and my soul really day and night and and to me she sounded and it was a sheri she sounded so convincing so I just wanted to follow that voice I couldn't resist that voice so you have to identify
>> you feel like it's harder to take risks like that as you become more successful or do you feel like now that you've written 21 books or whatever it is it actually becomes easier >> it's always hard it's always hard and it never gets any easier Yeah. >> And what is the hard coming from? Is it
>> And what is the hard coming from?
Is it from a personal fear of failure?
Is it from the critique of the editor, the critique of the culture?
Like what what direction is that coming from?
>> I think writing is hard.
You know, writing is um it does have suffering in it.
When I'm writing, I'm always a little bit miserable, but when I'm if I'm not writing, I'll be more miserable, you know.
[laughter] >> So that said, I also, you know, enjoy it so much.
Otherwise you wouldn't be able to do it.
>> The word compulsion comes to mind. Is that >> Yeah.
It's stronger than us, right?
You can't, you know, you just have to do it. It's art. It's literature.
It's the impulse is so big.
And I have so many fears and anxieties and there are days when I feel miserable and I'm like why am I doing this to myself?
Why couldn't I choose a simpler subject?
Why am I you know making it difficult for myself?
know making it difficult for myself? All these questions you ask yourself but at the end of the day I think what is stronger than all these questions is the love of literature if that love is there but in everything we do in life if love guides us if you really love what you're
doing only then we can keep doing it otherwise writing is really not easy as we get older it doesn't get any easier perhaps it becomes harder and harder and that's something we don't talk about enough How do you Let me know if you disagree with the framing, but how do you when I think of your writing, I almost think of like soft bed sheets. Like
Like you're writing it doesn't just do the job, but it's cozy.
It's kind of comfortable to to to be in.
comfortable to to to be in. Whereas then you read at least your you know your literature whereas then you read more non-fiction style writing and it's just it's a little bit more coarse like the there's right angles it really serves a purpose and I'm interested in the way
that writing softens because I think that that's a bit of what poetry does is what you do is you trade off you give up clarity singularity of meaning and then what you get is you that the writing can mean more things and it has um it becomes beautiful but it's softer. You said I mean your question is really
You said I mean your question is really important to me and you said something that very much resonates with me the singularity of meaning and how do we go beyond that >> to me that's so important I don't like these clashing certainties we live in an age of clashing certainties whereas I think in art and literature there's nuance there's pluralism there's multiplicity of course as a writer I have my opinions I have my values you know all of that.
Um, and I care about these issues. I care about silences. I care about minorities.
You know, there are many things we can talk about, but when you're writing, you cannot preach. That is so off-putting. You know, that's awful.
>> I don't like that at all.
I don't like it when writers try to teach something or lecture.
I really don't know the answers myself.
The only thing I know is that there are questions that I care about and it feels important to me to deal with these questions.
But you do it in such a way that you open up a space of plurality, multiplicity and nuance.
And then you need to take a step back as a writer.
Then you need to leave the answers to the readers because every reader is going to come up with their own answer. Readers are not passive.
You know, no two readings are ever the same.
You take two friends, dear friends, they share everything, every little secret.
They read the same book, but they wouldn't read it in the same way.
Or couples who've been married for 45 years, 50 years, they read the same book, one of them loves it, the other one hates it. Why?
Because every reader brings their own gaze into the story.
We create the meaning together.
And I, as an author, I have to respect that diversity of answers.
So, no preaching, no teaching, no lecturing, nothing like that.
It's just a space of nuance, freedom, and multiplicity that I'm after.
>> When you're editing and you go to a place where you produce a sentence that you're really proud of, how does that process unfold?
>> I think I do um simultaneous editing as I keep writing.
But that said, there comes a moment when you start working with your editor and it is a blessing for an author to work with an editor who understands her or understands him.
understands her or understands him. Um a book of course is um on on the cover you see only the the name of the author but we work with a team of people in the sense that not only in in I'm not only referring to the editorial process but every moment you know the cover design
the the copy editors who are amazing people we never in the public space recognize their work but these are the people who find the mistakes they say well for instance you mentioned this hotel in the room 1940 sorry in the year 1943 But in the year 1943, that hotel did not have green curtains. It has pink It has pink curtains. So be careful. That's so interesting.
You know, they love fiction with such passion or translators who translate our work into other languages.
And I'm really I feel very grateful um to everyone in this industry.
But that said, when you are writing, you are alone.
It's the loneliest form of art.
I think it was Walter Benamin who called it the loniest uh kind of art.
So the storyteller is alone and I do a lot of editing, rethinking, polishing.
Um I never walk a straight line linear you know path.
It's always jumping back and forth.
I and I always think in more cyclical circular uh timelines rather than linear.
Besides writing, what forms of art move you?
>> Art moves me in general.
I mean, music, dance, cinema. I love cinema.
The visual arts, a sculpture.
I mean, the very fact that a a sculpture can turn marble almost into liquid, like waterlike. Yeah.
>> It's just mesmerizing that the fluid nature of human movements.
How can you turn stone into that?
So art in general, photography, it I I love the arts and I and I think we need more interdisciplinary conversations between artists and writers.
We don't have enough of that. >> Yeah.
Well, I think one of the things that art can can can do is it for once takes us back to a state of youthful awakening.
And you know when you're in a state of awe, you have completely forgotten about all of your life, you are so struck, aruck, that's why we have that word.
You're so struck by whatever is in front of you and then you just become a kid again.
The single most embarrassing photo of me that exists that has been taken the last 10 years ago is there's this room at the Met in New York and it's all of these sculptures of women dancing and I'm in there and I'm like mirroring [laughter] >> just doing whatever with way less flexibility.
But that proves my point like I would never just do that.
But something about you know what I said to my friend I said there's so much movement in this room and he goes dude there's no movement in this room.
But I was like, "No, there's so much movement in the room." Do you know what I mean?
>> And I think that that's what art can do is it can >> it just warps us back into a place where we're like children again and there's imagination and wonder. >> Absolutely.
You know, I I I love the example you gave.
Oh, I could almost see it in my in my mind's eye.
And that's the the beauty of it because when we were children, we were not afraid of calling ourselves artists, poets. I've observed.
>> Well, those categories don't exist to your point.
It's just being >> but it's just organically part of life and children ask the deepest questions actually about life, death, God, mortality.
They're not afraid of asking those questions.
But as we grow up, we start to, you know, censor ourselves and little by little it withers away that creativity.
Um, if I may share this with you, I used to go to uh to give talks.
I I also published a children's book in Turkey.
So, which gave me the chance to talk to young readers like six years old, seven years old.
>> If you speak to a Turkish or a Jordanian um or a Lebanese child that age, they are no different whatsoever than a Canadian, French, Norwegian child, right?
At that age, children have a natural ability to, you know, to be creative.
And if you ask in a room full of children, are there any artists in this room?
So many hands go all of them artists.
Are there writers in this room? They're writers. Poets. They're poets.
And I think at that age, girls are um a little bit more perhaps vocal, you know, than than than boys at at that early age.
Um so I would then go and give talks at uh high schools or for for older students, 16 year old, 17 year old and then everything would have changed. Yeah.
Now if you ask in a room full of young students, teenagers, adolesccents, are there any writers in this room? No hands go up. Are there any poets?
You know, painters again no hands.
And girls have become timid. Why?
Because we taught them be careful how you sit, how you talk, the length of your skirt, the sound of your voice. You will be judged.
You know once you will be judged, you will be categorized.
You will be put in a category.
And so that fear we internalize that fear of judgment and little by little that kills our creativity.
To me it's very essential that we encourage each other and we remind each other of the innate the natural creativity and imagination that we all had as children before the society and the traditions and so on started chipping it away. Mhm.
Can you tell me more about poetry and how you read a poem, how you feel a poem, and then how that ends up in the writing that you that you produce?
>> You know, I think poetry is the the ultimate barrier for an immigrant.
As you can hear in my accent, I'm not a native speaker.
English for me is an acquired language.
I started learning English around the time I was 10, 11 years old. >> Yeah.
Spanish was your second language.
So English was your third, huh? >> That's true.
Spanish was my second language at the time.
Um, and of course when you're an immigrant, there's always a gap between the mind and the tongue.
The mind runs faster and the tongue in its own clumsy, awkward way tries to catch up but never quite can.
And that gap is very frustrating.
If we can learn not to be intimidated by that, it can also be inspiring because you don't take anything for granted.
But when it comes to poetry, I think particularly writing poetry or hearing the the melody, the cadence, the rhythm of the words, that is an immense challenge.
That said, I love poetry.
So I try to read not only in my mother tongue, which is Turkish, but also I read a lot of uh poetry in English. >> Yeah.
The poem that I know that you like that most reminds me of your work is the William Blake line.
to see the world in a grain of sand, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand.
>> Um, and heaven in a wild flower, you know, like that that that that is so >> I think the challenge of awakening, you know, even you you you see kids and um they'll see the smallest thing, they'll go just imagine something very big.
They don't need the the universe to imagine something as expansive as the universe.
um they can see the universal in the most particular ordinary objects and um I think that that's a lot of what poetry does is it it uh reduces the claustrophobia of our own minds.
>> Beautifully said and you're so right.
I mean we take it for granted but a grain of sand, a drop of water, the seemingly small, the seemingly insignificant actually says so much about the universe because everything is interconnected.
So sometimes that small thing might be a microcosmos and it does talk about the the microcosmos.
It's a bit mystical, you know, perhaps this this approach, but I've always been interested in those ancient philosophies, ancient poetry that just pays attention to the world, pays attention to details and does not take things for granted.
This also is important when we approach nature, you know, a tree, a creek, a stone, they're extraordinary, you know, um we can't take it for granted. We're not above nature.
We're not outside nature.
We become so arrogant as human beings and we have turned ourselves into consumers of nature.
But if I may give you an example, if you talk to for instance some grandmothers in Asia Minor, in the Middle East, the Balkans, the Levant, uh for example, when I was writing there are rivers in the sky, I did a lot of research about the Yazidi minorities.
As you know, the Yazidis are one of the most maligned, misunderstood and persecuted minorities in the in the Middle East and they don't have a written holy book or there isn't much written literature about them.
Uh it is a community in which memory is mostly carried on via oral storytelling. >> Okay.
So you have to do a lot of listening to understand to to connect and I I've spoken with many grandmothers particularly.
I'm I'm very grateful because they shared their stories with me.
But the reason why I'm mentioning is because I noticed after a while that um in the month of April if children are running around jumping up and down as children do the grandmothers gently warn them. Why?
Because according to them in the month of April the earth is pregnant and so when you walk you need to walk softly.
You need to tread gently.
Now to our rational modern minds this is just you know an irrational thing.
>> But of course the earth is pregnant.
>> But of course the earth is pregnant you know and then you're going to see all these flowers blooming the fruits you know and we're going to appreciate it.
But this idea that you need to tread gently because it's alive, you know, you can't stomp on it.
Only a culture that has not disconnected itself from nature can come up with this kind of storytelling.
And I think sometimes we're so obsessed with novelty, with the modern, with the new inventions that we forget there's a lot of wisdom in the ancient teachings all around the world. >> Yeah.
As you look at English, what do you think English speakers, what can't English access that Turkish can?
>> Every language, I think, has its own amazing strength.
Um, I love the English language.
I am I'm in love with the vocabulary of the English language.
It really is a challenge for me, if I may put it in these terms.
I think some novelists are more plot driven.
Some novelists are very much characterdriven and then there's a smaller number relatively smaller number of novelists for whom language is the biggest passion but they're not poets. They're writing pros.
I am in that in that group.
So for me language has always been a big big passion.
I wrote my first four novels in my mother tongue which is Turkish.
Um so for me to and then I switched about more than 20 years ago now I started writing in English.
So for me to in a way abandon my mother tongue it really felt like cutting off my hand you know the hand that I write with um it was very very challenging but I wanted to do this because I I needed freedom.
I needed some cognitive distance. I love what you said. Another great metaphor.
You said sometimes in order to see something more clearly, you step away from the painting rather than closer. >> Absolutely.
That's how it feels because writing in English, put a little bit of distance.
It's like taking a step back away uh and then you look at the painting and you see it more closely.
You see it from a completely different angle.
Perhaps it brought me closer to the land where I come from writing in English rather than in Turkish.
And I'm not generalizing.
I'm not saying that everyone should do this or anything like that, but in my case for my personal history, this is what worked best.
Now, coming back to English, I love it when in the English language you use with the word hutzah. >> I love that word. >> I love it, too.
Or you use the word kismmet and nobody says, "Wait a second, the first one is a Yiddish word and the second is an Arabic word and they shouldn't be part of the English language."
Of course, nobody says that because they are organically part of the English language.
Language is a river, you know, and you need to allow it to flow.
Whereas in Turkey, we have Turkey find our language.
So many words coming from Arabic origin or Persian origin.
Um sometimes you know other um minority backgrounds as well, we have taken those words out.
So as a result, our vocabulary shrunk quite a bit.
I cannot help but notice these these differences.
But at the end of the day, all I can tell you is my connection with the Turkish language is very emotional.
It's the language of my childhood, my grandmother. I really love it dearly.
My connection with the English language is more intellectual, more cerebral, and I feel like I need that too.
Um, and I realize if my writing has sorrel, melancholy, I still find these things much easier to express in Turkish.
But humor, which I love, um, not condescending humor, but compassionate humor.
So, humor, irony, satire, I find that much easier in English.
>> Earlier, you were talking about writing as if you were drunk, almost being drunk inside of the story.
Can you paint that picture of what that feels like for me?
>> Well, it's difficult to to paint that picture because >> I'm just surrounded with the story, you know? I'm not above the story.
I'm not looking at these characters from some height.
Um, I'm inside the story and they become my companions and we're on this road together.
That's that's how I feel.
I try to stay in that zone for as long as I can, as deep as I can.
The the novel as a genre is where I feel most at home, most free, and where I feel like I can be multiple.
can be multiple. We all contain multitudes like Walter Whitman said so beautifully so eloquently but we forget this and again we live in a world which doesn't allow us to be multiple let alone celebrate that multiplicity but when I am inside the novel I feel like I
can celebrate it you know I can bring out that multiplicity >> yeah well it's the job I think to to have the I feel like that is the jump because there's living inside the different characters and then like you were saying earlier moving in between the different stories. Um there's so many different
Um there's so many different moods and a effects in a novel >> that I think being able to do that just seems like the first thing you'd see in a job description feels like a ridiculous way to put it.
But that's kind of how I'm thinking about it. >> Well, true.
It's also a bit like you know nomadic experience like you have to journey from the psyche of one character to the next and then back and forth.
Um so you can't be sedentary you have to be quite nomadic spiritually intellectually.
I really think it's a very humbling exercise for the human soul.
As we spoke about earlier we're always looking at the world from our perspective from our truth.
But when we read a book, when we write a book, um in the case of the reader, for a few hours, for a few days, weeks, we leave that comfort zone behind and we journey into the existence of another person. The same for the writer.
That's really a very humbling exercise.
You know, you you learn to look at the world from shifting perspectives.
And by the time we come back to our self, I'm hoping we're a little bit wiser, a little bit perhaps more mature.
So there are things that fiction really can teach us, not in a preachy way, but in a very gentle, quiet way.
I think it's a little bit unfortunate that in the English language, we use the word fiction as if it were the opposite of fact, right?
you know, we we trace its ethmology all the way back to Latin to invent, you know, >> it's weird, isn't it? >> It is. It is.
So, it's not like that in every in every language.
Then people rightly so, they think, well, fiction is the opposite, the anti-thesis of reality.
So, you read fiction when you want to escape reality.
I don't I do not agree with that.
I think fiction is very interested in truth and it does bring us closer to truth, but it does it in its own way.
I want to read this to you because I think it really gets to the core of how you see writing differently from most people.
You know, if you think of writing class, what do you think of?
You think of grammar, syntax, pun punctuation, five paragraph essays.
But you say, "No, what a writer needs is first and foremost is freedom.
the freedom to read, freedom to write, freedom to be.
A culture that values books, libraries, literacy, literature, imagination, and the universal art of storytelling, which actually is one of the things I've noticed about London.
Lots of statues of artists, which I think is cool.
A country that does not intimidate, prosecute, or exile its creative minds with forces of censorship, persecution, disinformation, and oppression.
A society that does not ban books, target librarians, and remove books from libraries.
So let's start with the first part about freedom and then we'll get to the second part about the roots or really the soil that a culture needs in order to >> produce artistic fruit.
>> Well, freedom is so important because when you don't have the freedom to write, the freedom to read, the freedom to access books, um so much is taken away from from us.
you know, how can imagination flourish under these circumstances?
And and I wanted to write that article because I also wanted to be able to say we can't take the freedom for granted.
We can't say it's always it's always there.
Sometimes it isn't out there.
Again, where I come from, for something you write, whether you touch history or sexuality or gender or politics, for a sentence, you can be sued and put on trial.
Um, you can have prosecutors asking for, you know, three, five years in prison for fiction.
I you can have fictional characters being defended in court.
So, I've experienced all of these things.
So I think a part of me does not take the freedom to write or the freedom to read for granted.
>> What I want to do is I want to throw out the names of different writers who I know have inspired you and I want to hear what you've taken from them either in terms of the craft itself or what they've taught you about life. >> Wonderful. >> Walter Benjamin.
>> Oh, I I I I love Benjamin.
I mean he really shaped me in so many ways.
I read Benjamin I started reading Benjamin at a relatively young age.
Um but of course he's not a writer that you can discover in in one sitting.
Incredible mind the collage you know the the diversity of his interests culture history philosophy the visual arts.
Um I'm very interested in his the interdisciplinary nature of his thinking.
I think he was one of the greatest public intellectuals um of of the time.
And yeah, I've always always a soft spot in my heart.
>> What was the uh the book that he never finished that you really like?
>> Oh, what was it called?
>> The a not even the project. >> The arcades project.
Of course, it's a massive massive project and again it's like a collage of but how do you read a city?
How do you walk in a city and pay attention not only to its monuments, statues, streets but to the ruins to what has been lost, what is gone but still somehow is present through its absence.
It is Benjamin in a way that um showed me how to think in that way.
And this is very important because again when you live in a city like Istanul I was about to say that full of you know those remnants ruins absences.
So he's he's an amazing um reader of the of the urban urban world.
>> Well that's what's cool what I so I've never been to Istanbul and but my sense of Istanbul is I think of it as very layered city layered >> and it's layered in terms of all the different cultures and people that have been there.
You know, you think of Muslim on top of Christian and just >> how you the city might forget in certain places, but the amnesia does not seem to exist in the same way in terms of the architecture and the buildings. >> Yeah. Yeah. Indeed.
And um it's it's you know it's layers upon layers of history but also layers upon layers of forgetting.
And uh the way history is taught to us I always think is his story um meaning the stories of a few sultans or she slams men in at the top of the religious hierarchy and that's about it other than that there are no individuals in that kind of narrative but the moment you start asking questions about seemingly ordinary people uh as a writer for instance the moment you start asking but where are the stories of women.
Uh why don't we have, you know, streets named after women?
Why don't we have any visible, you know, play cards or statues, anything that honors their lives? There's a big silence.
What was the Ottoman Empire like for a peasant woman who had no access to power or authority?
What was it like for a prostitute?
What was it like for a concubine who was not necessarily the Sultan's favorite in the in the Haram? Then there's a silence.
But equally, what was the empire like for an Armenian silver smmith or an Arab peasant or a Kurdish farmer or a Jewish miller, a Greek sailor, you know, these were the main minorities at the time.
Again, there are big big silences.
So, I think you have to pay attention to what is written, but also what is forgotten. >> Yeah.
It makes me realize how much of politics is actually a battle over what we're remembering. >> Sure.
There's a choice of what we're going to prioritize, what we're not going to prioritize, who's going to be on the statues, who's not going to be on the statues, what are the stories that we're going to teach children, what are the songs that we're going to sing. >> True.
>> And I think a lot of our fights are are about that.
>> Well, I think memory is important, but not because we want to be stuck in the past.
That is not healthy either.
But my point is um if we cannot remember, we cannot repair.
And really what what we cannot repair keeps coming back again and again.
It is an illusion to think that time is always or history is always linear a progressive steady march.
We want to believe that the ark of history bends towards justice.
But there's no such guarantee.
Uh maybe in reality there are more cyclical repetitions than linear progress.
Um so I want to question that understanding of time.
question that understanding of time. the this the time used by storytellers I think is um is more cyclical is close to the time of nature and the Greeks were of course were very wise about this they talked about Kronos the chronology time which is the one we can measure but then they talked about chyros which is deep
time and that is the time of storytelling and you look at the world from a completely different angle so we have to remember that if you have the word for it I mean if we had more words to describe time for instance in the English language maybe our notion of time would be quite different now >> can you tell me a little bit more about
the difference between the two >> uh Kronos and Chyros >> so Kronos is more measurable it's easy to calculate you can you know um you can depend on clocks and calendars and schedules but Chyros is deep time and you need to pay attention to chyros if you're interested in the in the in the stories of nature maybe uh the journey of a rock you can't just measure it with
that you know tiny element of time you have to look at millennia you have to look at this long duray of time I've always believed that storytellers should be interested in a much more cyclical notion of time if I may give you an example I sometimes think this beautiful river um which very much shapes London The temps is a zombie river, isn't it? It's a zombie because not that long ago,
It's a zombie because not that long ago, it was declared biologically dead.
>> Um, you know, 150 years is actually nothing in the in the history of the world.
It's a very short amount of time.
So, not not that long ago, this beautiful river was declared dead.
Um, but it has come back from the dead.
Why was it declared dead?
Because of the way human beings mistreated the river.
It was full of filth and sewage to such an extent that back then people thought from now on no species, no bio species can ever survive in a water this dirty.
And yet here we are today and the temps is full of life.
It is home to more than 250 close to 300 bio species.
But instead of admiring the river, respecting the river, as we're speaking right now, in the name of money, in the name of profit and greed, once again, water companies are pumping sewage into the same river and it is happening right now.
So when you follow the journey of a river, is it really linear time or are we talking about a much more cyclical time? Um, it makes you wonder. Yeah.
I remember reading one time that in the Christian tradition, Easter kind of is the you get it's the closest that you get to Christ in the year in terms of the resurrection.
And you would think under the Kronos idea of time that every single day you're farther and farther from the resurrection, but there's a way that Easter actually brings you back to it and then you go away from it.
And >> I we can feel those kinds of different ways of thinking about time in our hearts even if we can't measure them with tools. >> Absolutely.
And I think a part of us understands, maybe we can't quite name it or describe it, but it's so close to our hearts because, you know, when you look at the moon, the movements of the of the moon, the the crescent, how it becomes the full moon, how it waxes and waines, >> there's a there are cycles in nature.
Uh as women, we understand this perhaps better.
But all of this is ancient ancient knowledge.
The problem is we have disconnected ourselves uh completely from those old philosophies that beautiful poetry and that's why I think we have become very arrogant because we think we're the cleverest species and we don't need anyone else but in reality we're only a tiny part of a very delicate ecosystem.
You know one day human beings might cease to exist on this planet but there will be mountains there will be trees.
I mean these are very very old beings.
Maybe trees are more sentient than we recognize.
Science is now telling us that trees are actually more sentient than we thought for a long time.
Now large language models are being used to um trace how maybe different animals in nature communicate with each other.
So actually there's so much more to nature than we know.
our knowledge of it is still quite limited. >> Yeah. Tell me about Remy.
>> So I uh I have a lot of love for Roomie's poetry.
We're talking about a poet who lived more than 800 years ago. >> Is that long? >> Yeah.
And uh I think it is fascinating that his poetry is so timeless in a way or transcends centuries.
Sometimes I jokingly think, you know, um, we Turks like to believe that Roomie belongs to us because he lived in Anatolia, he lived in COA, so he's our room.
>> But the Afghans, for instance, they say, "No way. He is our room."
Because originally his ancestors came from Beck and there are very interesting stories about how with caravans of camels, they brought books. They carried books.
You know, books were so important for them as a family.
as a family. So many Afghans will say well it's he's our roomie but the Persians for instance say will say he wrote in Persian he's definitely our roomie and then there are some poems of room written in Greek so the Greeks
might also say he's our room and so on but what I'm trying to say is the the the beauty of room is that he's nobody's room in my opinion but everyone's all humanities because his message his poetry is so universal it's really transcends boundaries and boxes and borders. Um, but the same I think for
Um, but the same I think for many other poets, many other mystics who lived in very different parts of the world without seeing each other, without ever meeting, but the fact that they were saying similar things uh is is very interesting to me.
>> Virginia Wolf, [clears throat] >> Virginia Wolf, massive love, massive love for Virginia Wolf.
um she really played an important role in my life not only as a novelist um but also as a public intellectual and I use this word as a positive word here in the UK when you say public intellectual people often see it as a sign of hubris or arrogance but I disagree I would like to see more public intellectuals people who have dedicated their lives um to the you know to knowledge to furthering knowledge, furthering wisdom.
I have a lot of respect for that.
I would love to see more women public intellectuals, young people welcomed as public intellectuals, workingclass public intellectuals or minority background public intellectuals and so on.
So I I use it in a very positive way.
Um, Virginia Wolf is someone who thought deeply, who cared deeply about many issues that are still very relevant today, from war, um, to what does it mean to have a nation, you know, militarism, violence, togetherness, all of these concepts that we're still dealing with.
But primarily as a novelist, I think she left a big impact on me, particularly reading Orlando.
I never forget the first time I read Orlando.
Until then, I didn't know you could write novels like that.
Like you could, it was almost fluid.
Everything transcending geography, time, temporal borders, you know, cultural borders, gender. She just went for it.
And then she called it um an autobiography or biography.
>> It's fascinating the way she played, the way she refused to be boxed in.
She's she's a very interesting author for me.
Everything she's written I'm interested in.
>> I thought this was a interesting way to think about religion and spirituality.
Obviously not the only one, but I'd never really framed it in these terms.
The religion could be something that's institutional, dogmatic, masculine, and spirituality have a tenor that's more fluid, >> personal, and feminine.
>> Yes, I'm I'm interested in this.
I'm not a religious person. I am >> at all.
And the way sometimes um religiosity divides humanity between us and them and assumes that us is closer to truth or closer to God than them is not very close to my heart.
Um I don't want to think in dualistic terms.
But I am interested in spirituality.
Um and I don't know what to call that to be honest.
What I am cautious about is certainties.
The moment people are very certain of their truth and then they close the door on the other.
I'm very cautious about that.
I think people who are absolutely certain of their religiosity.
They want to get rid of doubt.
But faith without doubt is a dogma and dogmas are very dangerous.
But equally people who are very sure of their atheism, they want to get rid of faith.
Whereas in life there is faith and I I think faith can also be a secular concept.
It doesn't always have to be a religious concept.
For instance, when you start writing a novel, you really don't know what you're doing, but something tells you to keep going.
For me, that's a secular act of faith.
When you fall in love with someone, you don't know if that person is the right person for you, but you do. You do go with it.
You know, >> that's a great example.
>> It's a secular act of faith.
So death do us part is an act of faith.
>> It is an act of faith.
When you move to another country um again you don't know what you're doing or another city for instance but you you do it.
It's not the rational mind that's speaking.
So there are all these secular acts of faith in life that we cannot brush aside.
So I guess my point is rather than the certainty of people who are very sure of their religiosity or the certainty of people who are very sure of their atheism, I am interested in something different and maybe that is agnosticism.
Maybe maybe they're agnostics or maybe they're mystics who are a bit like misfits that were walking a very thin line between faith and doubt.
sometimes falling a little bit but trying you know to keep going.
I am interested in people who are not afraid of saying I don't know.
>> I don't have all the answers. I'm still learning.
This whole life is a learning journey. I like that.
I think there's this certain humility to that that we have forgotten in this age of information.
Unfortunately, we've started to think that we know everything or we know something about everything and we forgot to say I don't know. Mhm.
When you think of a such an expansive question around religion and spirituality and the rich question and potential in a question like that and then think of let's pretend that's a very rich question for you very top of mind question.
In what way does that make it into your book?
like do you feel like your books are ways to grapple with those sorts of questions?
Do you do it through characters?
Do you do it through stories?
>> It's an interesting question.
These are all important questions for me.
But as we talked about a little bit earlier, um it's important that you bring these questions, you approach them with honesty, give it your best as a writer.
Then you open up a space of multiplicity and plurality.
You can have different characters with different opinions and you can't judge them.
You can't look, you know, um >> like the omniscient. >> Yeah.
Well, but but but you're not it's it's a it's a long debate in literature.
I mean, Floar wanted to be like God in his writing, completely invisible. differences.
I'm always interested in how writers approach their writing, but my point is we're not there to judge our characters and definitely we're not there to preach.
So, you open up these questions, but you also need to recognize that different people are going to come up with different interpretations.
All I'm saying is I care about these questions.
I care about these issues that we're talking about. cities.
You feel it's as if you have a straw that allows you to drink from the well of cities because I was talking about writers and how they've influenced you, but I I feel like cities have influenced you just as much as the writers. >> That's so true.
I mean, maybe it started in Strasburg in in France.
>> That's where you were born.
>> That's where I was born, but I did not live there for a long time, >> right?
because my parents got separated.
So I have this um interesting relationship with the French language and with France through its absence in my life.
Sometimes you know absences also shape us not only presence.
Um so I feel like the French language was in my hands once.
It's like sound between my fingers. It just slipped away.
And then I grew up in Ankara next to my grandmother, excuse me, my maternal grandmother.
And this was a very conservative, very inwardlooking, very patriarchal neighborhood where I really felt like we were the odd ones out. We I couldn't fit in.
Um, but that said, my grandma was a matriarch.
>> I was going to say she did was very different from that. >> Very different.
And played an important role in my life and she was a very wise human being.
So then I moved to Istanbul on my own.
I fell in love with Istanbul.
I thought I would live in a stumble forever.
You know, I had so much love for the city and I still carry that love with me but also it was a very difficult place for a writer. Um and I needed freedom. I moved to London.
I become a Londoner over the years and I loved this city dearly.
In between of course there was Madrid, Boston, I lived in Michigan, I lived in Arizona.
Um, the desert taught me a lot.
Living in in Arizona, connected me with nature in a very different way.
So, you're absolutely right.
Cities uh shaped me in many ways. >> Mhm. All right. One more.
Tell me about James Baldwin.
>> James Baldwin is is so close to my heart.
I have this candle uh votive candle in my library that says um James Balden, patron saint of exiles and poets.
Um always Baldwin's work fiction primarily of course but also him as a thinker as a public intellectual always has been of interest to me and as you know of course Baldwin he calls himself a commuter um I call myself a commuter inspired by him and he was someone who thought deeply about home belonging um exile as a black gay man in America at the time with liberal opinions.
He found it very very difficult you know and I think there are lots of things that he questioned when he when he lived in Paris when he lived in Istanul he came to his stumble and spent a long time there throughout his life I think Baldwin's work has always been uh important in my heart >> I want to close with a more melancholy topic which is sadness and writing about sadness and feeling sadness >> um it's an easy emotion to run away from.
But >> I think in order to have the depth that you have in your writing, it's one that you need to engage with.
>> Yes, we have to engage with sadness, sorrow.
Um, and I'm not claiming it's easy because you identify so much with your characters and with the story.
It really affects me and my psychology. >> Wow.
But I guess I've always been interested in this dialectical relationship between melancholy and sorrow.
And in a nice way we're drawing a circle and coming back to where we started.
Um I think in life just like there's magic in reality and there's reality in magic.
There is also symbiotic relationship between melancholy and humor.
For instance, I love humor, compassionate humor, not condescending humor.
Not the kind of humor in which the writer situates himself or herself above and makes fun of people. Not like that.
But a compassionate humor that tries to understand our weaknesses and follyies just being human each and every one of us is struggling in so many different ways.
So a more all embracing kind of humor I think is our oxygen.
Um, and I think there's a lot of humor in my in my writing as well as melancholy.
This was a little bit hard for me to explain at the beginning to my editors mainly because the because the subjects I deal with are heavy and difficult.
Um, sometimes people didn't expect to find humor in the same book in the same pages.
But because of exactly what we talked about about Istanbul, you know, being a city that mixes everything, life mixes everything.
And I think we need the oxygen of of humor.
It's equally important to me.
>> Well, it was it's been so good to meet you and you just have the most compassionate, warmest heart and uh it's cool to see the writing that you do spend some time with the person behind that writing and um I'm just very grateful. Thank you.
It's been an immense pleasure for me. I'm so grateful. Thank you so much.
Really enjoyed it so much. Thank you. >> Cool.