Elif Shafak | In One Brief Moment All Eternity

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.