LE PORTRAIT MAGAZINE Feb.27.2015 | Page 25

surrounding her father's death are the subject of the memoir The Devil that Danced on the Water. Forna studied law at University College London and was a Harkness Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2013 she assumed a post as Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Between 1989 and 1999 Forna worked for the BBC, both in radio and television, as a reporter and documentary maker in the spheres of arts and politics. She is also known for her Africa documentaries: Through African Eyes (1995), Africa Unmasked (2002) and The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (2009). Forna is also a board member of the Royal National Theatre and a judge for the The Man Booker International Prize 2013. Aminatta Forna is married to the furniture designer Simon Westcott and lives in south-east London. ELIF SHAFAK was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. She is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. Critics have named her as “one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Turkish and world literature”. Her books have been published in more than 40 countries and she was awarded the honorary distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. 25 Le portrait magazine