Award winning writer Elif Shafak's story, The Happiness of Blond People, finds a father attempting to change his family's fortunes by altering his image, but events do not go according to plan. The reader is Philip Arditti.

The Happiness of Blond People is the first in the short story series, Young Turks, which marks Istanbul's tenure as European City of Culture. The three stories explore Turkey's contemporary literary scene by showcasing the work of some of the nation's newest and youngest generation of writers.

The writer: Elif Shafak is an award-winning bestselling writer whose novel The Bastard of Istanbul was long listed for the Orange Prize. In the novel Shafak describes the massacres of Armenians as genocide, an opinion which led to her prosecution by the Turkish governemnt for insulting Turkishness.

The producer is Elizabeth Allard. Show less