I've written a children's book in Turkey, which gave me the chance to go to schools and talk to very young readers, and also I journeyed across the Middle East, again talking to children, And one thing stayed very, very vividly with me.
If you talk to a six-year-old or seven-year-old Turkish child or a Jordanian child or an Egyptian child, they're no different whatsoever than a Canadian or a Danish or a French child.
At that age, children have so much khutbah, so much confidence.
And it's so interesting to see.
Girls at that age are usually much more confident than boys, you know, and very eager to talk in the public space.
And if you ask in a room full of young readers, are there any artists here?
Are there any writers or poets here?
So many hands go up.
They're already artists.
They have no doubt.
They call themselves poets.
You know writers, no doubt, but then i would go and give talks to 16 year old, 17 year old youngsters teenagers, and everything has changed, everything now.
You know in a school.
You know, if you ask to teenagers Are there any writers in this room?
Rarely any hands would go up.
Are there any artists again?
And it's very sad to see that girls have become more timid.
Why?
Because we taught them to be timid.
We told them watch out, you know how you sit, the length of your skirt, whether you have short sleeves.
The intonation of your voice, how you laugh, how you talk.
You will be judged and you will be categorized on the basis of that judgment.
Now, this is very important for the creative process because little by little, we kill our own inner garden and our own inner creativity.
I was very impressed in the UK.
I did an event at Henley Festival and this little boy came, Patrick.
He shook my hand.
I wrote about this on Substack.
He waited, you know, patiently in the book signing queue.
And when it was his turn, he said, hi Elif Shafak, you know, nice to meet you.
I'm Patrick.
I'm also a writer and I'm working on my third novel.
And the seven-year-old boy having this confidence.
So, with respect, we shook each other's hands, we had a lovely chat and off he went.
But it made me think at what age is he going to stop calling himself a writer?
And I hope he never will do that.
But my little advice to young authors will be Sometimes there's a nagging voice inside us that judges what we do and tells us don't touch that subject.
People will judge you or what will happen if you write in this way, if you write about sexuality, if you write in an experimental way.
That nagging voice is not our voice.
It's a voice that came from outside and we internalized it.
So maybe one little advice if I may give to young writers would be to be aware of that nagging voice, you know, let us take it out, and to keep the inner garden alive.
And just to remember the creativity, the chutzpah, the confidence that we had when we were young children.
We all have those skills, we all have those talents, but we need to take good care of them.
