”Sometimes there’s a nagging voice inside that judges what we do.” Turkish writer Elif Shafak urges aspiring writers to protect their creativity and keep their childhood confidence alive.
Drawing on travels across the Middle East and beyond, Elif Shafak has met many readers. Including children who also identified as writers and artists, which made Shafak question why so many lose confidence in their creative processes: “We kill our own inner garden and our own creativity,” she says.
The self-criticism many face, Shafak states, is “not our voice. It’s a voice that came from outside, and we internalised it,” she says. “Be aware of that nagging voice, let us take it out and keep the inner garden alive,” she continues: “Remember the creativity, the chutzpah, the confidence that we had when we were young children.”
Elif Shafak (b. 1971, Strasbourg, France) is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-eight languages. She is a bestselling author of twenty books, thirteen of which are novels, in many countries worldwide. Shafak’s novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. The Island of Missing Trees was a Sunday Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. There are Rivers in the Sky, which won an Edward Stanford Award for Fiction, is her latest novel. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature. She was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal and, in 2024, was awarded the British Academy President’s Medal for ‘her excellent body of work which demonstrates an incredible intercultural range’.
Elif Shafak was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen in London, England, June 2025.
Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard
Produced and edited by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
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