Elif Batuman

Novels carry traces of the time and place in which they were written. 

Last weekend, and in the days since, hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in Turkey. At stake: the culture and civil liberties of the nation, from family plan...

Elif Batuman describes literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite Russian authors –from Pushkin to Platonov. In The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them she examines how the great Russian writers lived, worked, and why they continue to influence readers today.

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