I am an Istanbulite, and I will carry Istanbul with me wherever I go I am also very attached to the Balkans, especially Thessaloniki, where my great-grandmother came from. Instead of a single identity, I prefer multiple belongings. But either the society or the politics of the times tend to impose on us a monolithic notion of “identity”. I believe we all do, in truth, deep within, and in different ways or for various reasons. I have always thought I have multiple belongings. Writing in English and Turkish, you're often viewed as a writer who straddles West and East.

To me, it is very important, both the theory and practise of feminism. In my university years, I completed my Masters in Gender and Women’s Studies and I taught for several years in this area.

Enough of an insider to understand the culture and the people, but enough of an outsider to observe things from a cognitive distance. I always felt like an “outsider-insider”. I have to add, perhaps, that I was born in France and then my mother brought me to Ankara, Turkey, to my grandmother’s neighbourhood, which was very conservative. We were “strange” in the eyes of the neighbours. Until I was 10 years old, my grandmother looked after me while my mother went back to college and then she went into the workforce. And I had to learn this quite early on in life because I was raised by a single, working mother, a young divorcee. I know what it feels like to live in a deeply patriarchal, sexist and homophobic society. What role do you feel the novel can play in challenging the status quo? From Peri's early attack in the novel, through dinner with the wealthy businessman, the patriarchy looms large. So, in a way, this is a novel of ideas that questions certainties and opens up unexpected dialogues by putting young women-both believers and non-believers-at the centre. In fact, it is people who are “absolutely certain of their truths” and have a “simple” answer that have caused this world lots of harm, in my opinion.

If we could only celebrate confusion and complexity, things would have been very different. I like to question my own truths constantly. These are issues that I also care about, and think about, and perhaps, in many ways, I am also “confused”, which I believe is not necessarily a bad thing. My novel focuses primarily on the story of The Confused and the confusions of our times-about faith, identity, sexuality, the state of the world, the role of the individual. They call themselves, The Sinner, The Believer and The Confused. Where did the idea come from, and how much did it change as you wrote?Īt the heart of this story there are three young women. Tell us about the process behind writing Three Daughters of Eve.

The daughters of eve elif shafak