Renowned author Elif Shafak talks about her novel, ‘10 Minutes, 38 Seconds In This Strange World’ with The Emirates Literature Foundation

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The Emirates Literature Foundation has released the full recording of Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2021 session with Elif Shafak in conversation with festival Director Ahlam Bolooki.

Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, academic, public speaker, and women's rights activist.

The session touches on the recent novel ‘10 Minutes, 38 Seconds In This Strange World’.

The novel tells the story of Tequila Leila, an Istanbul streetwalker. The novel's title and first half describe the last moments of Leila's consciousness as she crosses from life into death.

 Elif Shafak poses for a photograph. 

The 13^th Emirates Airline Festival of Literature (29 January-13 February) hosted international authors, including Malala Yousafzai, Amin Maalouf and Lemn Sissay, Huda Hamed, Abdulaziz Baraka Sakin and many more.

The recording is part of a digital series of recorded sessions to be released on the Emirates Literature Foundation YouTube channel.

The Festival was held with the support of Founding Partners Emirates Airline and the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), the Emirate’s dedicated authority for heritage, arts, and culture.

Shafak writes in Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels.

Her books have been translated into forty-nine languages.