Unmapped Storylands with Elif Shafak

Unmapped Storylands with Elif Shafak

What One Thousand and One Nights Can Teach Us Today

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Elif Shafak
May 18, 2025
∙ Paid
Shehrazad and the cruel Sultan through the eyes of German artist Ferdinand Keller, 19th Century

“You must have grown up with different stories in Turkey,” said an American scholar to me many years ago. “I guess magical realism comes naturally to you.”

It made me pause, the comment.

“Different stories?” I asked.

‘Yes, like One Thousand and One Nights….”

I w…

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