Telling Tales

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Radio 4 Extra celebrates the best in storytelling. Different voices and different genres.

BBC Radio 4 Extra celebrates the very best in storytelling, showcasing different voices, and different genres, from the BBC archives and beyond.

Telling Tales: Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Telling Tales, Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak talks about the power of storytelling to promote empathy and understanding.

The British Turkish writer Elif Shafak talks about the power of storytelling to promote empathy and understanding.

Elif Shafak has published seventeen books – fiction and non-fiction – and taught at academic institutions around the word.

Born in France, Elif has lived in Turkey, Jordan, and the United States, and currently divides her time between Istanbul and London. A passionate proponent of internationalism and cosmopolitanism, Elif has said that if she had to choose one homeland, then it would be storyland, where characters are complex and readers can learn from walking in other people's shoes.

In this episode of Telling Tales, Elif talks about her love for Istanbul, and shares the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Turkey’s cultural capital in the documentary, Reimagining The City. It is a Falling Tree production that first broadcast on Radio 4 in 2013.

With writing very politicised in Turkey, Elif also remembers the surreal experience of being put on trial for words uttered by fictional characters in her 2006 novel, The Bastard Of Istanbul, which was dramatised for Radio 4 in 2018.

We hear about the cemetery which inspired Elif’s new novel, 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in this Strange World, which has since been nominated for the prestigious Booker prize. 

Elif also talks about the six stories shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize, which help promote empathy and understanding – a mission that is very close to Elif’s heart.

Produced and presented for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Ali Gardiner.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

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