Award-winning Turkish author Elif Şafak comes out as bisexual

Prominent Turkish author Elif Şafak announced that she is a bisexual on Oct. 14 during her speech as part of TED Talks in New York, daily Hürriyet reported on its website. 

Şafak said she had not come out until today because she feared “stigma, ridicule and hatred.”

“I have always been very vocal about unwritten extensively about minority rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights. But as I was thinking about this TED talk, I realized one thing: I have never had the courage to say in a public space that I myself am bisexual. Because I so feared the slander, stigma, ridicule and hatred that was sure to follow. But of course one should never ever remain silent for fear of complexity,” she said.

“As writers, we always chase stories. But I think we are also interested in silences - the things we cannot talk about. Political taboos, cultural taboos … We are also interested in our own silences,” she added.

Şafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She has also penned a number of articles of political commentary for outlets in Europe and the U.S.

She writes in both Turkish and English and her books have been published into 48 languages. She has published 15 books so far, 10 of which are novels, including the bestselling “The Bastard of Istanbul,” “The Forty Rules of Love” and her most recent, “Three Daughters of Eve.” She is published by Penguin in the UK and represented by Curtis Brown globally.