Elif Shafak is hands down one of my heroes. I mean where do I begin? She’s a politics scholar and a brilliant public speaker, she is chosen among BBC’s top 100 influential woman, she’s the vice president of the Royal Society of Literature, the founding member of the European Council of Foreign Relations and now I’m just out of breath. But what I love most about her is how she takes the indecipherable tangle of thoughts in my brain and lays them clearly and eloquently as a single profound thread.
What’s great is how Elif Shafak believes in the fluidity of the mind. That we can’t be rigid if we seek understanding. In her second TED talk she speaks about the plurality of thought. That we don’t have to exist in one frame of mind, but in many. That we can transcend borders drawn to divide and separate. In the Three Daughter’s of Eve this theme of plurality and diversity of thought is the vein of the novel. Peri is a bright girl who finds herself always floating in between life’s dualities, unable to pick a side. Moved and challenged by her eccentric Oxford Professor, Peri learns that uncertainty is a gift. Remaining rigid and dogmatic is what prevents us from evolving.
Furthermore, Elif Shafak has brought together so many complex facets of human existence in her writing. How the debates of the self and the outer world are merged with the simple rendering of human emotion and human events that make her novels both philosophical and concrete. Elif Shafak’s political voice and views shine through, but also with a gentle openness to see the world from many perspectives. We see how some views are thought of as the “the one and only truth there could be” are seen by others as utterly intolerable—but the key is to listen. To respect. Not to respond with anger or a turn blind eye. Something we all must learn. A timeless and wise voice— Elif Shafak’s novels are a must-read.
Peri loved words. She hold them in her palm like eggs about to hatch, their tiny hearts beating against her skin, full of life.
-ELIF SHAFAK, THREE DAUGHTERS OF EVE