The award-winning novelist, public intellectual and political commentator Elif Shafak has been named as the forth writer to contribute to Future Library. Future Library is a public artwork by Scottish artist Katie Paterson that will unfold over 100 years in the city of Oslo, Norway. The Canadian author Margaret Atwood was the first author to contribute (2014) followed by British novelist David Mitchell (2015) and Icelandic poet, novelist and lyricist Sjón (2016).
Katie Paterson says:
It is pertinent that Elif Shafak joins Future Library as 2017’s author. Her work dissolves boundaries: cultural, geographic, political, ideological, religious, and spiritual, and embraces a plurality of voices. Her storytelling is magical and profound, creating connectivity between people and places: a signal of hope at a particularly divided moment in time.
A thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka, a forest just outside Oslo, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in 100 years’ time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until 2114. All 100 manuscripts will be held in a specially designed room in the new Deichmanske Public Library opening in 2019 in Bjørvika, Oslo. No adult living today will ever know what is inside the boxes, other than that they are texts of some kind that will withstand the ravages of time and be technologically available in the year 2114.
Elif Shafak will hand over her manuscript at a special ceremony in the Norwegian forest in June 2018.
Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She is also a political commentator and an inspirational public speaker. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 15 books, 10 of which are novels, including the bestselling The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love and most recently Three Daughters of Eve. Her books have been translated into 47 languages.
Shafak is a TED Global speaker, a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy in Davos and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). She has been awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2010 by the French government.
She has been featured in major newspapers and periodicals around the world, including the Financial Times, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica.
Shafak has taught at various universities in Turkey, UK and USA. She holds a degree in International Relations, a master’s degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and a PhD in Political Science. She is known as a women’s rights, minority rights and LGBT rights advocate.
Shafak has been longlisted for the Orange Prize, MAN Asian Prize; the Baileys Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Award, and shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize. She sat on the judging panel for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2013); Sunday Times Short Story Award (2014, 2015), 10th Women of the Future Awards (2015); FT/Oppenheimer Funds Emerging Voices Awards (2015, 2016); Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (2016); Man Booker International Prize (2017) and The Sunday Times / Peter Frasers + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. She lives in London and can be found at: @Elif_Safak www.elifshafak.com