Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely-read female author in Turkey. Her books have been translated into more than twenty languages – and several have expressed her fascination with Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, and in particular with Rumi, the Sufi poet who was born more than 800 years ago, but made it on to the poetry bestseller lists in the 20th century. Elif Shafak talks to Razia Iqbal about her interest in Rumi and the mysterious wandering dervish who inspired him, Shams of Tabriz; both are central to her 2010 novel, The Forty Rules of Love, which has sold over half a million copies in Turkey alone.
