Elif Batuman (born 1977) is an American author, academic, and journalist. She is the author of three books: a memoir, ''The Possessed'', and the novels ''

The Idiot ''The Idiot'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform rus, Идиот, Idiót) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal ''The Russian Messenger'' in 1868–69. The title is an ...

,'' which was a finalist for the 2018

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published durin ...

, and '' Either/Or''. Batuman is a staff writer for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''.

Early life

Elif Batuman was born in New York City to Turkish parents, and grew up in New Jersey. She graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher ...

, and received her doctorate in

comparative literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

. While attending graduate school, Batuman studied the

Uzbek language Uzbek (''Oʻzbekcha, Oʻzbek tili or Ўзбекча, Ўзбек тили''), formerly known as ''Turki'' or ''Western Turki'', is a Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official, and national language of Uzbekistan. Uzbek is spoken as ...

Samarkand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, ...

, Uzbekistan. Her dissertation, ''The Windmill and the Giant: Double-Entry Bookkeeping in the Novel,'' is about the process of social research and solitary construction undertaken by novelists.

Career

In February 2010, Batuman published her first book, ''The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them'', based on material she previously published in ''

'', ''

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

'', and ''

N+1 N1, N.I, N-1, or N01 may refer to: Information technology * Nokia N1, an Android tablet * Nexus One, an Android phone made by HTC * Nylas N1, a desktop email client * Oppo N1, an Android phone * N1, a Sun Microsystems software brand now most ...

'','The Meaning of Russia'
''

Oxonian Review ''The Oxonian Review'' is a literary magazine produced by postgraduate students at the University of Oxford. Every fortnight during term time, an online edition is published featuring reviews and essays on current affairs and literature. It is t ...

''. which details her experiences as a comparative literature graduate student at

. Reviewing the book for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', critic

Dwight Garner Dwight Garner (born January 8, 1965) is an American journalist and longtime writer and editor for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, he was named a book critic for the newspaper. He is the author of ''Garner's Quotations: A Modern Miscellany'' and ...

praised the "winsome and infectious delight she feels in the presence of literary genius and beauty." Batuman’s novel ''

'' is partly based on her own experiences attending Harvard in the mid-1990s and teaching English in Hungary in the summer of 1996. It was a finalist for the 2018

. Batuman was writer-in-residence at Koç University in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

, Turkey,"Department of English Language and Comparative Literature - Elif Batuman"
Koç University. Retrieved September 16, 2014. from 2010 to 2013. She now lives in New York.Bio of Elif Batuman, ''New Yorker'' contributors page
In 2016, she met her partner; she writes that this relationship, her first non-heterosexual one, "resulted in a series of changes to erviews not just of gender but also of genre" as Batuman realized how influential film and narrative had been to her ideas about how women should behave. Batuman's 2018 article in ''

'' on Japan's rental family industry won the

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

. In 2021, the magazine returned the award after an investigation revealed that three subjects in the essay had made false statements to Batuman and the magazine's fact-checkers.

Influences

Russian literature figures heavily in Batuman's work. Batuman says that her obsession with Russian literature began when she read

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repr ...

’s ''

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...

'' in high school. Both ''The Possessed'' and ''The Idiot'' pay homage to Batuman's favorite Russian writer,

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

Personal life

Batuman identifies as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the l ...

and stopped dating men at age 38. In an interview, she discussed reading

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

's essay ''

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" is a 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, which was also published in her 1986 book ''Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985'' as a part of the radical feminism movement of the late '60s, '7 ...

'' after beginning to date her current partner, a woman, after a lifetime of dating only men, and how it related to certain behaviors by her protagonist Selin.

Bibliography

Books

* *''

'', Penguin Press, 2017. . *'' Either/Or'', Penguin Press, 2022. .

Essays, reporting and other contributions

*Elif Batuman (Jan 16, 2006)
"Cool Heart"
''The New Yorker.'' * * * * *

Göbekli Tepe Göbekli Tepe (, "Potbelly Hill"; known as ''Girê Mirazan'' or ''Xirabreşkê'' in Kurdish) is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between 9500 and 8000 BCE, the ...

*''Two Rivers.''

Carolyn Drake Carolyn Drake (born 1971) is an American photographer based in Vallejo, California. She works on long term photo-based projects seeking to interrogate dominant historical narratives and imagine alternatives to them. Her work explores community an ...

, self-published, 2013. . Edition of 700 copies. By Carolyn Drake. Accompanied by a separate book with a short essay by Batuman and notes by Drake. * * * * *

Interviews

* Elif Batuma
in conversation
with ''Full Stop ''(December 14, 2011). * "The books that made me"
"My stress read? Epictetus during a dental procedure"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' (April 28, 2018). *
Elif Batuman
on the Longform Podcast (June 6, 2018). *Elif Batuman
interviewed
by Yen Pham for White Review (June, 2017) *Elif Batuman
interviewed
by The Daily Stoic *Elif Batuman
interviewed
by Cecilia Barron for The College Hill Independent

Awards

* Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, 2007. *

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and ...

, 2010. *Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, 2017.

References

External links

Elif Batuman's personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Batuman, Elif Living people 1977 births American expatriates in Turkey American memoirists American people of Turkish descent Harvard Advocate alumni Harvard College alumni The New Yorker people Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award winners Stanford University alumni American women memoirists Writers from New York City 21st-century American women American LGBT writers