I just came across this wonderful conversation between Elif Shafak and the Nobel Prize-winner Abdulrazak Gurnah and I wanted to share some of it here.

I was not able embed the video, but you can check it in full in the Hay Festival Website. You can also follow Elif Shafak on social media, that’s where I came across the video.

Here’s some of it (chat GPT helped to clean it, but the meaning is unaltered):

Definition of Cosmopolitanism

Elif Shafak: I want to come back to this notion of diversity and cosmopolitanism, which is one of the many reasons I love your work so much.

Abdulrazak Gurnah: The definition of cosmopolitan often takes Europe or the West as its starting point. So the cosmopolitan, in the sense we’re most familiar with, is someone from Europe or the West who opens themselves to the world—to Sanskrit, to Chinese literature, or similar traditions. But the core of it still begins in Europe.

My sense is that there are many cosmopolitanisms, each with different centers. I belong to one based in the Indian Ocean world. That world recognized and sustained itself, even before the arrival of Europeans, and continued after colonial administrations left.

In other words, it’s something that has been and continues to be. It lives in the languages people speak, the religions they share, the cuisines, and the stories they tell.

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Middle East

Elif Shafak: The lands we come from are incredibly complex. When I think about the Middle East, it’s often generalized in international media. But if you look at history, ethnicity, class—there’s enormous diversity and complexity.

There always was. Some of it has been lost, but the ruins, the remnants, remain.

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Identity as a Writer

Elif Shafak: I always think if you happen to be an Afghan women writer, you’re not usually expected to write sci fi or climate fiction or avant-garde fiction. If you’re an Afghan woman writer, you’re usually expected to write about the problems of Afghan women. And those stories are incredibly important and must be amplified. But that same writer might choose to write about something entirely different in her next book.

That freedom—without attaching labels or putting her in a box—is what I’m talking about.

I actually wrote about this very idea here.

Abdulrazak Gurnah: I don’t use the word “identity” much. I don’t like it. It implies something static, as if once you’ve found your identity, you’re done—locked in. But we know that’s not how it works. People learn, reassess, reflect all the time.

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Turkish Pessimism

Elif Shafak: I can’t be very optimistic—it’s not in my DNA. I’m Turkish. If you open a map of Europe and trace the Danube eastward, the level of optimism drops and drops. By the time you reach Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, the Black Sea, Turkey—

Abdulrazak Gurnah: That’s why it’s called the Black Sea. (laughter)

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Portable Homelands

Elif Shafak: You say this so beautifully—how you’ve traveled so much, and when you arrived wherever you went, you realized you brought home with you. I love that idea of portable homes, portable homelands—what we bring with us, and what we leave behind.

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UK and Brexit

Abdulrazak Gurnah: It’s as if this country is torn between offering sanctuary and embracing xenophobia. Every few years, there’s a burst of hatred toward foreigners, blaming them for whatever the troubles are. And then at other times, it doesn’t feel like that at all.

Elif Shafak: It’s as if we only have two choices in life—either this or that. With immigration, it’s either dehumanizing rhetoric or the idea of completely open borders. As if there’s no third, more nuanced option.

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Writing in English

Elif Shafak: I can’t say it’s easy, but when I journeyed into that space—writing in English—I realized language isn’t just a tool like a fork and knife you use and then set aside. You enter into it; you inhale it. It shapes you.

Its rhythm, its melody. It gave me a bit of distance from where I come from. Like when you want to see a painting better—you don’t go closer, you step back. Writing in English allowed me to take a closer look at my own culture and upbringing.

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Home

Abdulrazak Gurnah: “Where are you from?” is a different question from “Where is home?” I’ve come to understand that home doesn’t only mean where you were born.

Home is also where you live—even if it isn’t where you’re from. That’s true for millions of people and has always been true. But we’ve become used to thinking that where you’re born is where you belong.

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Identity

Elif Shafak: Being Turkish is a big part of who I am. I still carry Istanbul with me and miss it deeply.

But I also feel very attached to the Balkans. Put me next to a Greek, Bulgarian, or Romanian author—I have a lot in common with them.

At the same time, I’m from the Middle East. I carry elements of that in my soul too. Put me next to a Syrian, Iraqi, or Jordanian author—I relate to them as well.

I’d also like to think I’m European, perhaps by birth, and in the values I share. I’ve become British over the years. I feel attached to this country. I want it to have a good, egalitarian future.

And despite what politicians say during sagas like Brexit, I’d still like to call myself a citizen of the world.

That doesn’t mean you’re from nowhere or that you’re floating in the air. We carry multiple attachments. That’s what I want to say to people who ask me those questions. (“Where are you from?”)

Even someone born and raised in a small town all their life can have multiple belongings—through their sexual identity, ancestral heritage—layers upon layers of stories and silences.

We are all complex. That’s why we love literature: it helps us recognize that multiplicity, and the beauty in it.