Elif Safak
Elif Safak
Elif Şafakis a Turkish author, columnist, speaker and academic...
NationalityTurkish
ProfessionAuthor
CountryTurkey
grief people empathy
After the Ankara bombings on October 10, people were asked to hold a minute of silence, but many refused. Our society can't even unite in grief to honor the victims. We've lost our empathy. That's maybe the worst.
land people literature
Isn't connecting people to distant lands and culture one of the strengths of good literature?
people pace world
The digital world is developing with such force and such a pace that you simply can't ban or control it. People want to be globally connected.
europe turkeys people
Turkey has a very young, dynamic, curious population. In Europe, Facebook and Twitter are mostly about sharing daily experiences while for Turkish people, social networks are political platforms.
opposites two people
I see two opposite tendencies in Turkish society: people feel demoralized, they lose the interest in politics and retreat to their private lives; or they become very angry and even more politicized, and radicalized. Both trends are troublesome.
wall dating people
Perhaps this is why lunatics have a harder time dating, not because they are off the wall but because it is hard to find soemone who is willing to date so many people in one person.
space mouths infinite
The words that come out of our mouths do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.
cities childhood forget
But let us not forget that cities are like human beings. They are born, they go through childhood and adolescence, they grow old, and eventually they die
humanity saint
A saint belongs to all humanity.
identity-politics water fiction
Identity politics divides us; fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations, the other in nuances. One draws boundaries, the other recognizes no frontiers. Identity politics is made of solid bricks; fiction is flowing water.
mind like-her speak
perhaps it took a stranger to make a woman like her speak her mind.
art practice becoming
Article Five: If you have no reason or ability to accomplish anything, then just practice the art of becoming.
giving ignorant bears
Either grant me the bliss of the ignorant or give me the strength to bear the knowledge.
mirrors believer
Believers are each other's mirrors.