PEN International interview series marks International Women's Day 2017

8 March 2017

It is the extraordinary legacy of women writers and journalists that inspire us at PEN to continue fighting the many barriers women writers still face. Whether that is censorship in the form of physical or emotional violence, a society that stereotypes and marginalizes them, or a publishing industry that still sees women earning less, publishing less, and being reviewed less than their male peers. This is a struggle that affects us all because everyone needs the stories, voices, and craft women writers have always offered – despite a huge number of challenges - in such abundance. The stories, rhythms, and power of women writers have created new worlds, both real and fictional, in which readers can lose and find themselves, glean inspiration to live more visibly and inhabit women’s knowledge.

PEN International is honoured to present this interview series marking International Women’s Day 2017 as we speak to 3 women writers. Their individual contributions to the field is inspiring as each one has experienced trials and difficulties simply because they are women. The three women we have chosen to speak to are Elif Shafak, Grace Mutandwa, and Hanan al-Shaykh and the interviews will be released over the next three days. The first interview can be found below.

Jennifer Clement
President, PEN International

Elif Shafak 

In the first interview in our series Sahar Halaimzai talks to Elif Shafak.

When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?

I started writing at a very early age, when I was eight years old. Not because I wanted to be a novelist, I didn’t even know that was a possibility. It was because I was a lonely child. I was an only child raised by a single mother and books opened new and undiscovered worlds to me. I loved those worlds. The decision to be a writer came around the time I was 18, which is when I started writing purposefully. So first came the love of books and then the decision to be a writer.

How have your experiences as a woman and your experiences as a writer collided?

In Turkey the literary world might seem very liberal, well-educated and westernised at first glance. But when you scratch the surface it’s the same as the rest of Turkish society. In Turkey if you're a male writer you are first and foremost known as a writer but if you are a woman writer, first and foremost you are woman and then a writer. There is this gender lens in Turkish society that everything is seen through. Women writers are recognised when they’re much older, but until then as a woman writer you are constantly belittled, ridiculed and looked down upon. It’s much harder for women writers, journalists, poets, academics to get the same recognition as their male counterparts.

Has that been your experience?

Yes, that has been my experience. I was very young, 22, when my first collection of stories was published, and 23 when I published my first novel and I was mocked and ridiculed constantly.

One of the biggest lesson I learned as a writer was around the time that The Bastard of Istanbul was published. I was attacked by the elite of Turkey’s society, accused of being a traitor because I talked about the Armenian genocide. I understood then that elite of Turkey and the people of Turkey were very different. I came to discover that my book was being read by people from very diverse backgrounds. The book gained popularity through word of mouth rather than a marketing campaign. Someone would read it and give it to a friend, who would give it to their aunt who would give it to their son who would give it to their colleague - people were sharing my book. This was so inspiring to me at a time when I was being attacked by the political and literary elite. And the positive feedback and love I received from the readers was amazing. I am not an elitists’ writer, I am reader’s writer and through the art of storytelling I feel connected to readers, which is very important to me.

A lot of women writers that PEN has worked with have faced threats of violence or experienced violence, which is another form of censorship. How do gender roles as perceived in society impact the topics you feel you can write about and what the characters in your books can do? In other words, do you feel that gender roles can restrict writers and what they write about?

I think all of us in our daily lives are reduced to certain roles and identities no matter where we are in the world. But the beauty of fiction and art of story-telling is that you can be multiple people. I have always defended multiplicity; as a writer I have multiple personalities. I believe that a writer’s pen must be bisexual, multi-faceted. It is a writer’s job to ask the difficult questions, to challenge stereotypes and taboos, not to give answers, readers have to arrive at those answers themselves.

The voices of minority communities and the ‘other’ always play a big role in my writing. I want to give a voice to people whose voices have been silenced. Because I have felt like the other so many times in my own life, including in my own motherland. I have a constant flow of empathy towards the other, both past and present. For me fiction is not necessarily autobiographical, I find that boring. What is much more intriguing is to occupy a different space, to be someone else. That is truly transcendental, that is real freedom.

Who was the first female character that you read that really inspired you and why?

There are so many because my reading has always been really eclectic. Growing up I read lots of Turkish books, but I also read lots of English, Russian and Spanish literature and all of these had a big impact on me.

When I was younger I loved Little Women and the character of Jo really spoke to me. Over time I discovered Jane Austen and George Elliot and I loved reading Gogol and Dostoevsky. And I vividly remember the first time I read Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, it really blew me away.

Does story-telling have the power to challenge social injustice?

Absolutely. I think storytelling has the power to open up an inner space in all of us, and that space is so neglected in our lives. For example in Turkey I have readers from all backgrounds – leftists, secularists, Turks, Kurds, Jews, Greeks and people from very conservative backgrounds and women who wear the hijab. And many of us feel so restrained by different parts of our identity, particularly publically. But I have spoken to scores of readers from all these backgrounds who say to me that they cried when a gay character or an Armenian character in my books were hurt. So there’s this real connection with the ‘other’ through my novels even if they don’t profess similar views in public. I think that when we are alone and we can retreat into our inner space we become a little more open minded and a little more ready to empathise with stories that we may not necessarily recognise as our own.

But when we are in the company of others, when we are in groups or communities we become more closed, more ready to subscribe to the group narrative. Art, in whatever form it takes, opens up inner spaces in all of us and can ultimately change us.

What book should every girl read?

I think every girl should read constantly. Our favourite books should change over time. But the act of reading should be continuous, never ending, particularly if you want to be or are a writer.