Elif Shafak | In One Brief Moment All Eternity
Sat 21 Nov 2026 | 2:00pm - 3:00pm
A new novel by Elif Shafak is always a cause for celebration, and hurrah for her latest, In One Brief Moment All Eternity. Spanning decades and continents from revolutionary 19th century France to Istanbul, Egypt and Beirut, it’s a luminous portrait of the life of Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, told through the lives of the women – both real and fictional – who shaped him. A profound meditation on creativity during political crisis and war, it asks: what can literature offer, when the world feels broken?
In conversation with Bonnie Lander Johnson.
Venue: TTP Stage (Cambridge Union)
Duration: 1 hour
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Author Biography
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and storyteller. She has published 21 books, 13 of which are novels and her books have been translated into almost 60 languages. The Island of Missing Trees was a finalist for the Costa Award, British Book Awards, RSL Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize for Fiction and was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize; and was Blackwell’s Book of the Year. The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by BBC among the 100 Novels that Shaped Our World. An advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice TED Global speaker.
Chair Biography
Bonnie Lander Johnson is Fellow and Associate Professor at Downing College, Cambridge University, where she teaches the literature and history of the early modern period and represents the University on the BBC/Cambridge National Short Story Award. Her academic books include Vanishing Landscapes (Hodder & Stoughton), Botanical Culture and Popular Belief in Shakespeare’s England (Cambridge University Press), The Cambridge Handbook to Literature and Plants, Chastity in Early Stuart Literature and Culture (Cambridge University Press) and Blood Matters (University of Pennsylvania Press). Bonnie is also a fiction and non-fiction writer. Her work has appeared in Hinterland, The Belfast Review, Howl and Dappled Things, and her fiction has been shortlisted for The Royal Society of Literature’s V. S. Pritchett Prize and The Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize.
