“When I was growing up, many of my relatives had never seen a black person before. Today, hundreds, maybe thousands of Africans live in Istanbul's old city alone. It's hard to imagine their lives in their human totality.”

American author, academic, and journalist

Elif Batuman is an American author, academic, and journalist. She writes fiction and nonfiction, and is known for The Possessed, The Idiot, and Either/Or. Her work spans memoir, the novel, and magazine journalism. She is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and her books include The Possessed (2010), The Idiot (2017), a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Either/Or (2022).