Changemakers: Elif Shafak
In conversation
Wednesday 11 September 2024 6.30 - 7.45pm
Benjamin West Lecture Theatre | Burlington Gardens or digital livestream
£20/12 in person £10/£8 online
Friends of the RA book first
Angelica Kauffman
Award-winning author Elif Shafak discusses the universal power of storytelling.
In this conversation, British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak will talk about writing, empathy, humanity, activism and the importance of storytelling.
Elif Shafak has published 20 books, 13 of which are novels, addressing silenced voices and untold stories from Eastern and Western cultures, memory and amnesia, climate change and water scarcity, equality and human rights. The most widely read female author in Turkey, her work has been shortlisted for the Costa Award, British Book Awards, RSL Ondaatje Prize, Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Booker Prize.
An advocate for women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression, Shafak was among the BBC's 100 most inspiring and influential women and the BBC’s selection of 100 Novels that Shaped Our World. Twice a TED global speaker, Politico listed her in 2017 as one of the twelve people who would make the world better. Shafak was awarded the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to 'the renewal of the art of storytelling’.
Chair: Claire Armitstead is an associate editor who writes across the arts for the Guardian and Observer. Her previous roles at the Guardian include arts editor, literary editor and head of books. She is former deputy chair of English Pen and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is the editor of Tales of Two Londons: Stories from a Fractured City.
Changemakers is a series of conversations with women across the cultural sector, highlighting how their work has shifted narratives, broken down barriers, and generated change across the arts.
The series is inspired by the RA’s Angelica Kauffman exhibition and her role as a pioneering artist. Kauffman was one of only two female painters among the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, the other artist being Mary Moser. Kauffman helped to shape the direction of European art, reinventing the genre of history painting by focusing largely on female protagonists from classical history and mythology.
Angelica Kauffman is at the RA until 30 June 2024.
The event will be accompanied by speech-to-text transcription courtesy of Stagetext.