Podcast Summary: Elif Shafak on the Power of Storytelling, Freedom of Expression and the Global Water Crisis

Podcast: A Podcast of One's Own with Julia Gillard
Guest: Elif Shafak
Date: August 21, 2024

Episode Overview

This episode features acclaimed novelist, political scientist, and activist Elif Shafak in conversation with Julia Gillard. The discussion weaves together Shafak's personal journey, her perspectives on identity and storytelling, the interconnections between gender inequality and global crises, the power and vulnerability of free expression, and the themes explored in her new novel, There Are Rivers in the Sky—notably, memory, water, and the ongoing fight for women's equality.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Formative Influences: Family, Gender, and Outsiderhood

• Family legacy of strong women: Shafak describes how her mother (rational, urban, educated) and grandmother (traditional, nurturing) shaped her worldview and writing (02:35).
  • “When and if women support each other, the impact of that goes beyond generations.” – Elif Shafak [03:15]
• Early realization of gender discrimination: Growing up in a patriarchal neighborhood in Ankara, she noticed boys being treated as “little sultans”, but notes men can be harmed by patriarchy too (04:19–05:44).
  • “Patriarchy makes women unhappy and takes away their rights. But I really don't think men can be happy and free within a patriarchal order either.” – Elif Shafak [04:55]
• Sense of not fully belonging (“insider-outsider”) due to her French-Turkish background and complex family dynamics (father's absence) (05:48–07:07).

2. Multiplicity of Identity

• Rejecting static national identity: Shafak champions seeing identity as fluid and layered (French, Turkish, European, global) (07:33).
  • “I want to think of identity not as a static monolithic block, but rather something more fluid, like ripples in water.” – Elif Shafak [08:39]

3. Early Struggles with Literacy and the Power of Stories

• Difficulties learning to read and write (left-handedness taboo in Turkey) and how she found solace in the “silent G” of the Turkish alphabet (09:43–11:49).
• Stories as escape and empathy: Fiction provided a way to imagine alternative realities and to transcend personal boundaries (11:55).
  • “From the very beginning, fiction for me has not been autobiographical... what is much more interesting is not to be myself, to journey into someone else's mind, life, truth.” – Elif Shafak [12:57]

4. Academic Life and Writing Career

• Interdisciplinarity: Passion for connecting women’s studies, literature, sociology, and political science in academia, reinforcing the importance of lifelong learning and curiosity as a writer (14:07).
• First novel at 22: Navigated language politics in Turkey, intentionally incorporating words from multiple ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, challenging dualities between “old” and “new” (15:41–17:37).

5. Writing in English; Exile and Expression

• Switch from Turkish to English: Prompted by feelings of suffocation, the urge for “more oxygen” and cognitive distance because of censorship, sexism, and being a woman writer in Turkey (17:37–19:13).
  • Sorrow and melancholy are easier to express in Turkish; humor and satire in English.

6. Censorship and Political Persecution

• Charged for “insulting Turkishness”: After The Bastard of Istanbul, Shafak was tried in court over characters’ use of the word “genocide”—highlighting the vulnerability of art, and personal trauma during her pregnancy (19:50–21:13).
  • “My Turkish lawyer had to defend my Armenian fictional characters in the courtroom.” – Elif Shafak [20:18]

7. Motherhood, Inner Democracy, and Mental Health

• Postpartum depression and multiple identities: Discussed in her memoir Black Milk, using “six Thumbelinas” as metaphors for conflicting female identities (career, domesticity, creativity, etc.). Emphasized the importance of talking honestly about maternal mental health (22:02).
  • “When we are going through depression, we tend to think it is forever, but we have to understand that it's a season in our lives and after that season there will be other seasons.” – Elif Shafak [23:33]
  • “We need to take care of our inner guards and inner democracy.” – Elif Shafak [24:17]

8. How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division

• Apathy vs engagement: Warns that numbness and apathy are the most dangerous emotions in times of polarization. Encourages turning anxiety and anger into constructive action (26:08).
  • “We are living in the age of anxiety. Let's maybe recognize that. Let's also talk about our own worries.” – Elif Shafak [26:37]
  • “The main question for me... Toni Morrison said, sometimes I feel so angry, but then I go and I sit down at my desk and I write.” – Elif Shafak [27:31]

9. Writing Routines and the Value of Reading

• No “perfect” writer’s routine: Rebukes the myth of ritualized schedules (usually claimed by privileged male writers), underscores adaptability, and the daily importance of reading widely—from all cultures and genres (28:11–29:47).

10. There Are Rivers in the Sky: Water, Memory & Interconnectedness

• Structure and themes of the new novel: Three characters, two rivers (Thames and Tigris), one poem (Gilgamesh)—all connected by a single raindrop (33:32–34:40).
  • “It's a story of three characters... and then two rivers... and one poem, ancient poem, which is the epic of Gilgamesh. 3, 2, 1. That’s the structure of the book, and I guess I see it as my love letter to water.” – Elif Shafak [34:23]
  • Each story explores different eras and perspectives (ancient, 1840s, contemporary).
• Museums, colonialism, and memory: Explores who controls history and what is remembered or silenced. Calls for nuanced conversations about artefacts and acknowledges both the love of individual archaeologists and criticism of colonial institutions (35:55–38:54).

11. Genocide, Oral Memory, and the Yazidis

• Ten years since the Yazidi genocide: Shafak connects water, storytelling, and the erasure of cultures, especially how ISIS targeted the Yazidi minority, attacking women and elders—the keepers of oral tradition (39:20–41:57).
  • “The memory of the identity of this community is transmitted not through archives, but through oral storytelling. So when you kill the elderly, you are killing the collective memory.” – Elif Shafak [40:21]

12. Water, Gender and Climate Crisis

• Women on the front lines of water crisis: Highlighted the link between water scarcity, gender-based violence, and inequality, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (42:53).
  • “Climate crisis is primarily fresh water crisis... Women are water carriers. They're also memory keepers. When there's no fresh water, the amount of distance that a woman has to walk increases, again increasing the chances, unfortunately, the possibility for gender violence along the way... We tend to think these are different boxes... but actually they're all connected.” – Elif Shafak [43:47]
• Rivers as metaphors and warning signs: The recovery and re-pollution of the Thames as a symbol of human learning, forgetting, and interconnectedness.

13. Patriarchy, “Inner Democracy” and Global Sisterhood

• Normalization of patriarchy: Its most dangerous form is when it's internalized by women and society as “normal”, and when women judge themselves by its standards (46:14).
  • “Patriarchy is at its strongest not when it's imposed from above by some brute force, but when it's normalised and absorbed to such an extent that it becomes par for the course.” – Elif Shafak [45:34]
• No “solid” countries for women’s rights: Living in “liquid times”—no society is immune to setbacks on gender equality (46:58).
• Call for global solidarity: Emphasizes the need for an inclusive, global sisterhood rooted in empathy (48:47).
  • “I genuinely think this is the right time to talk about global solidarity and global sisterhood... We need to initiate these conversations.” – Elif Shafak [48:47]

Notable Quotes & Moments

• “I want to think of identity... as something more fluid, like ripples in water.” – Elif Shafak [08:39]
• “Fiction is always more transcendental... you transcend the boundaries of the self that's given to you by birth.” – Elif Shafak [13:27]
• “My Turkish lawyer had to defend my Armenian fictional characters in the courtroom.” – Elif Shafak [20:18]
• “We tend to think these are different boxes, like water crisis, gender violence or racial inequality, but actually they're all connected.” – Elif Shafak [44:15]
• “Patriarchy is at its strongest not when it's imposed from above... but when it's normalised and absorbed...” – Elif Shafak [45:34]
• “As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” – Virginia Woolf, quoted by Julia Gillard [49:45]

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamps | |-------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Introduction, guest background | 00:02–01:32 | | Family influences, early gender awareness | 02:35–05:44 | | Sense of outsiderhood | 05:48–07:07 | | Multiplicity of identity | 07:33–09:09 | | Early struggles with literacy | 09:43–11:49 | | Storytelling as transcendence | 11:55–13:44 | | Academic journey, eclectic learning | 14:07–15:30 | | First publications, language politics | 15:41–17:37 | | Writing in English, creative freedom | 17:37–19:13 | | Censorship and trial over Armenians issue | 19:50–21:13 | | Motherhood, postnatal depression, Black Milk | 21:13–25:01 | | Essay: How to Stay Sane in Age of Division | 26:08–27:52 | | Writing routine, value of reading | 28:11–29:47 | | New novel: Structure, themes, water | 33:32–34:40 | | Museums, colonial memory, and silences | 35:55–38:54 | | Yazidi genocide, oral memory | 39:20–41:57 | | Water science, gender, and climate crisis | 42:53–45:02 | | Patriarchy, internalization, solidarity | 45:02–49:05 | | Closing: Identity, sisterhood, Woolf’s quote | 49:05–50:22 |

Memorable Closing

The episode closes with Julia Gillard quoting Virginia Woolf, capturing the spirit of Elif Shafak's approach to literature and life:

“As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”
– Virginia Woolf, quoted by Julia Gillard [49:45]

Shafak responds, “Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much, Julia. What a pleasure this has been. Thank you.” [49:52]

Episode Themes:

• The transformative and connective power of stories
• Identity as multiplicity, resisting reduction
• Freedom of expression and dangers of censorship
• Interlinking of gender, memory, water, and global crises
• The ongoing urgency of solidarity and the global struggle for gender equality and human rights

Recommended For:
Listeners interested in feminism, literature, global inequality, human rights, and the intricate connections between personal experience and global issues.