About Elif Shafak
Welcome to Unmapped Storylands
Writers live a solitary life, building imaginary stories one word at a time. Being a novelist, in particular, is the loneliest form of creativity, demanding a space of pure solitude amidst our age of fast-consumption. While many contribute to a book's making, the actual process of imagination and composition requires us to be, and to remain, on our own.
We have to stay inside our inner garden—which sounds poetic and romantic, until you cut yourself on the thorns.
I am obsessed with notebooks, my constant companions, filled with personal observations and seeds of inspiration. My handwriting is terrible—a legacy of being ‘converted’ from left- to right-handed in school—but their illegible scribbles and stains are precious reflections of life itself, and the source of my ideas.