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Elif Shafak is supporting her local indie bookshop by signing and personalising copies of her eagerly-anticipated new novel, In One Brief Moment All Eternity, for our customers!

Just purchase your copy from Everybody Reads either in-store or over the phone prior to publishing date (14th October is the last day), give us the name for personalisation at time of purchase, and then collect it from 17th October.

In One Brief Moment All Eternity - During a time of great turmoil, Gustave Flaubert created literature's most scandalous heroine: Madame Bovary. He then poisoned her with arsenic. But what if, 175 years later, Emma – and the women history overlooked – could seize the quill from his hands and tell a different story?
In One Brief Moment All Eternity is a luminous reinvention of an iconic male writer, told through the eyes of the women – real and fictional – who shaped him: a devoted nursemaid, an Egyptian dancer and a passionate, jealous lover who refuses to be forgotten. Through their voices, visionary author Elif Shafak creates both an intimate portrait of a great artist and an epic meditation on storytelling itself: who gets remembered, who gets erased, and how can literature endure through political upheaval, war and injustice? When the world feels broken, how do we find the hope to carry on? Shafak takes readers on an extraordinary journey through time and space, from Flaubert's unusual childhood in a house that was part home, part hospital, part morgue, to nineteenth-century Paris during the Revolution, and onwards to Istanbul, Cairo, Palestine and Beirut. In this exhilarating tale, the questions at the heart of her work take on a thrilling new urgency: who gets to speak, and what would the silenced have said? Boldly inventive, transporting and illuminating, spanning decades and continents, In One Brief Moment All Eternity is a dazzling love letter to literature, untold stories, neglected communities and the enduring spirit of humanity.

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Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and storyteller. She has published 21
books, 13 of which are novels and her books have been translated into 58 languages. The Island of Missing Trees was a finalist for the Costa Award, British Book Awards, RSL Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize for Fiction and was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. 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 Queen’s Reading Room. There are Rivers in the Sky won the Edward Stanford Award 2025, Prix Fragonard de Littérature Étrangère, and was a finalist for the Prix Fémina Étranger and The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Her next novel, In One Brief Moment All Eternity, will be published on 15 October.
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 an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bard College. Shafak is a Fellow and President of the Royal Society of Literature and has been chosen among BBC’s 100 most inspiring and influential women. She is a Public Humanities Fellow at the School of Advanced Studies (SAS) in recognition of her work to shape the future of Public Humanities, deepen its reach and expand its impact.  An advocate for women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of expression, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice TED Global speaker. She
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”. She has judged numerous literary prizes, including The PEN Nabokov Prize and has chaired the Wellcome Prize. Shafak is the recipient of the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to “the renewal of the art of storytelling”. In 2024, Shafak was awarded the British Academy President’s Medal for “her excellent body of work which demonstrates an incredible intercultural range.” Her website can be found at www.elifshafak.com and her Substack is called “Unmapped Storylands”.