Analysis Of Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules Of Love

Elif Shafak is an award winning novelist and the most widely read women writer in Turkey. She writes in both English and Turkish. Her books have been translated into more than 30 languages. Critics have given her the title as “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Turkish and world literature". Shafak emphasizes the importance of cultural understanding in the 21st century. She believes that people who are concered with art must make use of this cosmopolitan energy. The most prominent and effective feature in her narrative style is the interfusion of Eastern and Western story telling traditions. Her works show her devotedness for history, philosophy, Sufism and subcultures.

"The Forty Rules of Love" by Elif Shafak is a tale which whirls the reader 's mind, knowledge and imagination. The novel consists of two parallel narrations. The novel opens in contemporary time zone (21st century), in which an American house wife starts reading a book under the title "Sweet Blasphemy". This novel serves as the other narration in "The Forty rules of Love" which sets in the 13th century. This was the unstable and chaotic period in Turkey, prevailing with religious clashes, political instability and endless power strife. In the West Crusaders occupied Constantinople, this results in the partition of the Byzantine Empire. While, on the other hand of the globe, in East, Mongol armies expanded under the rule of Genghis Khan. In the midst of this time of crisis lived a Islamic