DescriptionBlack Milk is the affecting and beautifully written memoir on motherhood and writing by Turkey’s bestselling female writer Elif Shafak, author of Honour, The Gaze and The Bastard of Istanbul which was long-listed for the Orange prize.Postpartum depression affects millions of new mothers every year, and- like most of its victims- Elif Shafak never expected to be one of them.But after the birth of her first child in 2006, the internationally bestselling Turkish author remembers how “for the first time my adult life . . . words wouldn’t speak to me”.As her despair finally eased, Shafak sought to resuscitate her writing life by chronicling her own experiences.In her intimate memoir, she reveals how she struggled to overcome her depression and how literature provided the salvation she so desperately needed.Review‘An intimate, affecting memoir . . . Her passion for literature is contagious, and her struggle with postpartum depression and writer’s block reinforces how carefully all of us must tread. Beautifully rendered, Shafak’s Black Milk is an epic poem to women everywhere’ – Colleen MondorAuthor BiographyElif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist. She has published 19 books, 12 of which are novels. She is a bestselling author in many countries around the world and her work has been translated into 55 languages. Her latest novel 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. The Architect’s Apprentice was chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall’s inaugural book club, The Reading Room. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne’s College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She also holds a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bard College.Shafak is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature. She was a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). An advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights and freedom of expression, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice TED Global speaker. Shafak contributes to major publications around the world and she was awarded the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2017 she was chosen by Politico as one of the twelve people “who will give you a much needed lift of the heart”. Shafak has judged numerous literary prizes, including PEN Nabokov prize and she has chaired the Wellcome Prize.