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

The Idiot ''The Idiot'' (Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform ) is a novel by the 19th-century Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published serially in the journal ''The Russian Messenger'' in 1868–1869. The titl ...

,'' 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 during ...

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

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''.

Early life

Elif Batuman was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to Turkish parents, and grew up in

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. She graduated from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

in 1999 and received her doctorate in

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

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. While attending graduate school, Batuman studied the

Uzbek language Uzbek is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language endonymically called or , as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 19 ...

Samarkand Samarkand ( ; Uzbek language, Uzbek and Tajik language, Tajik: Самарқанд / Samarqand, ) is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central As ...

, 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 United States. ''Harper's Magazine'' has ...

'', and '' N+1'',, '' Oxonian Review''. which details her experiences as a comparative literature graduate student at

. Reviewing the book for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', 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 Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

in the summer of 1996. It was a finalist for the 2018

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

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

, 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 Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

’s ''

The Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' () is a three-volume nonfiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian ...

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

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...

Personal life

Batuman identifies as

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

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'' after beginning to date her current partner, and how it related to ''The Idiot's'' protagonist, Selin.

Bibliography

Novels

* ''

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

Non-Fiction

* ''The Possessed'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. .

Uncollected short stories

Uncollected essays and articles

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

Göbekli Tepe Göbekli Tepe (, ; Kurdish: or , 'Wish Hill') is a Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia (''al-Jazira'') in modern-day Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from around to at least , during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is famou ...

* ''Two Rivers.'' Carolyn Drake, 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. * Online version is titled "Adventures in transcranial direct-current stimulation". * * * Online version is titled "How to be a Stoic". *

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 Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' (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 ——————— ;Notes

Awards

* Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, 2007. * Whiting Award, 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 Memoirists from New York (state) American academics 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 LGBTQ writers