Elif Shafak's Journey Between Languages bis

Remember I had written about Elif Shafak's autobiographical novel Siyah Süt some time ago on this blog (see post An Ode to Women). The novel has now been translated into French at the Phebus Publishing House, the editor Daniel Arsand talks about Lait Noir on a Fnac Live video on You Tube. I wonder if it will be translated into English as well.

For the non French speakers among you, Shafak's novel Ask (which I didn't enjoy reading but was a huge success in Turkey) will be out in English under the title The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi). The most interesting about this latest novel is the journey Shafak is doing between languages (see my previous post about her love of languages). Ask and The Forty Rules of Love show yet another crazy journey for the writer. Shafak has first written the novel in English, then it has been translated into Turkish by a translator. Shafak then took the translation and rewrote the novel. When the Turkish version was ready, she went back to the English version and rewrote it with a new spirit. She explains in an interview to Today's Zaman that she has "built two parallel books in the same span of time" She adds: "It is a bit insane, I have to admit. It is a crazy amount of work. I do this because language is my passion." And this is why, despite the fact that I don't always enjoy all her writings, I think Elif Shafak is an amazingly productive writer who can cross a lot of boundaries using languages.

Elif Shafak's Journey between Languages

Most of you might know how strongly I always objected to people saying that one can only write in his or her own native or first language. I am now so relieved to read Elif Shafak's column of 17 March. For those of you who cannot read Turkish, I would like to share some of her views here. Shafak starts her article explaining how people like to ask her why she is writing in English, and even sometimes argue that by writing in English, she becomes a writer of English language literature. "It isn't so!" she says and argues that today, when so many people are living and growing up and get educated in different languages, live in different countries, move so much, we shouldn't put people into such narrow categories. Elif Shafak is writing both in English and in Turkish, not only is this important for the author, but it is for the reader. I don't feel the same when I read her work when the original version is English (like The Bastard of Istanbul or The Saint of Incipient Insanities) or Turkish (like Mahrem or Bit Palas). I always prefer to read books in their original written language, the same goes when I watch movies. Whenever possible, I prefer the original version. And in case of Elif Shafak's work, I can join her in the journey between languages because luckily, I understand both Turkish and English. I sometimes have more trouble understanding Shafak's work in Turkish because she uses a very elaborate vocabulary with many ancient Turkish words (I love to learn by the way!). And this is what I love about her work, this "journey between languages" as she likes to put it. It is also a journey for her readers, at least it is for me.

Her last novel published in Turkey and in Turkish, Ask (pronounced "Ashk", meaning "Love") is the example of such an adventurous and passionate journey. Shafak has written the novel in English and had it translated into Turkish by Kadir Yiğit Uz. Then she reworked on the Turkish version, so in a sense, Ask "has been written again". In her column, Shafak also fairly explains that it isn't an easy task for a writer to express him or herself in a different language and that it would simply be madness if one wouldn't simply love working like that. She offers a wide range of examples of writers who have been writing in different languages and in languages which aren't their first, like Nabokov, Beckett, or Conrad (whose English Virginia Woolf heavily criticized). Well yes, they are all among the best writers of the 20th century so no doubt that were successful.

I am fascinated by languages and I myself speak five. I do certainly not master them all the same way but all of them open different doors of the world to me, make me experience different cultures, teach me different visions and ways of life, and offer me such a wide range of possibilities to express myself. So I think I do know what Elif Shafak is sharing with her readers and I do applaud her for the way she shakes herself, her readers and literature to its very core.

Elif Shafak's column in the Newspaper Zaman appears twice a week.

An Ode to Women

After her internationally acclaimed The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak is back in the book shelves since the end of November 2007 with a new work in Turkish: Siyah Süt. It has not been translated yet but I am sure it will in a short while. And if no editor has already thought about publishing an English or French version, I can hereby state that I am very much open to work on it in French.

Siyah Süt -Turkish for "Black Milk"- is Shafak's first autobiographical novel, as clearly stated on the cover (see right side bottom). It subtitle says: "Yeni baslayanlar için Postpartum depresyon" -Postpartum depression for beginners. At first view, it wasn't a book for me I thought. I am not a mother and I have no wish to be one, even though I stay open to change my current vision on my life is baby-less. But then I really like Elif Shafak's work, especially her English written novels The Saint of Incipient Insanities and The Bastard of Istanbul - I have to be honest, I have difficulty reading the language she uses in her Turkish novels. I wanted to know more about this writer, because I was sure, no matter what, that she was going to tell her readers about her writing and not about her baby splitting on her nightgown only. And I have been impressed, even more than expected. Black Milk is a brilliant work. During 200 pages and even more, Shafak specifically writes about herself and the many voices inside of her before her pregnancy, enabling her readers to really understand the postnatal depression she went through. Inviting her readers to reflection, Shafak tells about her fears, her wishes, her doubts and moves to the wider theme of being a woman in society. She describes women writer's lives and vision on motherhood and feminism, making parallels with her own states of mind. She gives voice to the different women within her, and talks to herself through these six different characters throughout her story. Artist Latif Demirci's drawings also add another dimension to her storytelling, allowing an outside eye to draw the author's experience.

Shafak thought that she could never write again, but she intelligently and movingly transforms her black-turned maternity milk into ink. However, she wants this ink to be ephemeral as she tells her readers right from the beginning that this book has been written so it could be forgotten as soon as it has been read. "Suya yazi yazar gibi..." - as if you would write on water.
I don't know if it had been designed on purpose, but the ink of the title on the cover of my book has vanished after I read the novel... No matter what, I will not forget this book because for me, it is above all an ode to women.

Elif Safak
Siyah Süt
Dogan Kitapçilik
303 pages
Published November 2007 in Turkish

Mastering the fact of not being a native speaker of whatever language

"We are sorry, but your application cannot be accepted because you are not a native English speaker"... This is the sad answer that a good friend of mine, native from Panama, raised and educated both in Spanish and English, gets to hear from some European Commission employee to her application for an internship... How do they expect to evolve with such a narrow minded view on today's world, especially in a place like Europe where people, cultures and therefore languages are continuously intermingling? Even if not from birth (still, at least two languages are spoken in many families), languages can be learned and mastered through education and practice. I cannot believe that one can only write in one's own native language (I wonder how Nabokov would have answered to such a stupid assessment). I was myself raised in Turkish, educated in French then in English and Spanish, using Dutch in everyday life and at work. I do not master all of these languages in the same way of course, but I couldn't accept anyone limiting my capacities in writing, thinking, understanding or communicating in any way, to my native tongue, which isn't actually one but two. Nothing rare here, nothing impossible and certainly nothing extraordinary. When Elif Shafak, a writer who was born in France, lived in Spain, studied in Turkey and the United States, writes novels in Turkish and in English, I can just applaud her. It is a richness and not a mistake to be able to write in as many languages as one masters. The key word, as you may have understood, is not "being native" but rather "mastering", and the same goes for everything, far beyond languages.