Elif Batuman

Elif Batuman is an American author, academic, and journalist born to Turkish parents in New York City.

She graduated from Harvard College and earned a doctorate in comparative literature from Stanford University.

Batuman's first book, "The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them," was published in 2010.

Her writing, which has appeared in publications like The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine, is known for its epigrammatic style.

Batuman received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award in 2007 and currently serves as writer-in-residence at Koç University.

Her academic background includes studying Uzbek language in Samarkand and researching the novel-writing process.