Unmapped Storylands with Elif Shafak

Unmapped Storylands with Elif Shafak

Amateur Writers vs Professional Authors

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Elif Shafak
May 12, 2024
∙ Paid
Susan Sontag, pictured here in her study. I have much love and respect for her.

It was many years ago. I was in my mid-twenties. I had just completed my third novel—The Gaze. By now I had fully and painfully understood one fundamental truth about writing fiction—that it never ever gets easier.

My first two novels, written in Turkish, had caused some sle…

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