Ostpartum depression affects millions of new mothers every year, and -like most of its victims- Elif Shafak never expected to be one of them. But after the birth of her first child in 2006, the internationally bestselling Turkish author remembers how, "for the first time my adult life... words wouldn't speak to me" (p. 5).
As her despair finally eased, Shafak sought to resuscitate her writing life by chronicling her own experiences.
As a Sufi, Shafak believes that "to be human... means to live with an orchestra of conflicting voices and mixed emotions" (p. xii). Within herself, she had always acknowledged that there was not one identity, but a cacophony of voices that squabbled for ascendance. They were her "harem within" (p. 46), and Shafak recognized each of her internal voices: Little Miss Practical, Dame Dervish, Milady Ambitious Chekhovian, and Miss High-Browed Cynic.
"In an intimate, affecting memoir, best-selling Turkish writer Shafak (The Forty Rules of Love, 2010) looks within to find answers to the question of how a woman may balance motherhood and a career. Light years from the standard perspective of supermom versus the world, Shafak relishes her independence and refuses to ignore fears about the impact of marriage and children on her most central self, that of a writer. She faces each warring part of her nature (delightfully caricatured as an internal "harem" of conflicting voices) and mines the lives of other female writers for insight. The great voices she discusses are impressive, including Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, George Sand, Louisa May Alcott, Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath, and Ayn Rand. The list goes on and on, and no mention is casual. Shafak has reasons to discuss every life she mentions, including her own, and with an elegant yet steely force of will, she convinces readers to look for answers along with her. Her passion for literature is contagious, and her struggle with postpartum depression and writer's block reinforces how carefully all of us must tread. Beautifully rendered, Shafak's Black Milk is an epic poem to women everywhere."
- Colleen Mondor
The Women Within Elif Shafak - Rafia Zakaria read more...
