How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division: The powerful, pocket-sized manifesto (Welcome collection)

Product Information

Two of the most intriguing walk-on characters in Elif Shafak’s How to Stay Sane are the little Egyptian girl named “Facebook” by her parents in that brief, optimistic phase of the Arab spring – and another baby given the name “Like” in Israel just a few months later. They are poignant reminders of another age in which social media looked set to deliver a new and better world. It is hard not to wonder, as Shafak does, what has become of this pair. “Do they view the buoyancy that presided when they were born as a relic of the past … ?” Or to put it more simply, “what on earth have they done with their names?” Discarded them at the earliest opportunity would be my guess – whether because of the misplaced optimism with which their parents had branded them, or simple embarrassment in the playground.

Shafak’s writing in support of pluralism, democracy and moderate standpoints is a warm bath in these troubling times Through stories we start to imagine lives beyond the one we are living, we recognize the complexity and richness of identities and the damage we to ourselves and to others when we seek to reduce them into a singe defining characteristic.”Masovno uništenje ne počinje s koncentracijskim logorima ili plinskim komorama. Diskriminacija uvijek počinje riječima. Počinje jezikom."

Sinds ik Elif Shafak hoorde spreken op het Festival van de Gelijkheid in Gent (2019), ben ik fan van deze auteur. Niet alleen schrijft ze prachtige boeken - 10 minuten 38 seconden in deze vreemde wereld vond ik fantastisch - ook is ze een bevlogen sociaal-maatschappelijke schrijver die ijvert voor een betere wereld. How to stay sane in an age of division is het eerste non-fictie boek dat ik van Shafak las. This book has by no means solved world peace but it certainly makes us as readers in the modern world feel heard, understood and that our feelings are valid. The title literally says it all.Touching on the invisible or unspoken forces that constantly divide humans into groups: the right group and the wrong group. One of which being social media and it’s ways of adding to the human polarization. Frightfully, it is true. We’re not so aware but social media is pushing us apart as much as it beings us close as a species. Purposeful quotes from her own grandmother to recent writers are sprinkled throughout: 'Don't thank me, ' Grandma said. 'You focus on improving your daughter's life. We inherit our circumstances, we improve them for the next generation. I had little education, I wanted you to do better. Now you need to make sure your daughter has more than you had. Isn't this the natural way of the world? - excerpt from pg. 51 I get angry about things, then go on and work. - Toni Morrison What we call the beginning is often the end... Her writing is emotional and hope filled in a way we are not so accustomed anymore; how many people do we still know who can convincingly (and without irony) plead for the value of liberal democracy?

When Elif Shafak’s mother married, she dropped out of university to focus on being a wife. Later, she got divorced and returned to university to finish her studies, leaving her daughter temporarily in the care of her mother. After passing her exams, she thanked her mother for helping to raise Elif. “Don’t thank me,” came the reply. “You focus on improving your daughter’s life. We inherit our circumstances, we improve them for the next generation. Now you need to make sure your daughter has more than you had.” But Shafak hasn’t set out to offer an overview of world history. As the example of young Facebook and Like reminds us, she is really pointing to the revolutionary expectations that were raised but never fulfilled by the advent of social media – and to the disappointments as well as to the achievements of the last century of western liberal democracy, which have obviously left much of the traditional power structure (and traditional exclusions) more or less intact. U obliku eseja Elif u nekoliko poglavlja tematizira osjećaje razočaranosti i zbunjenosti, tjeskobe, ljutnje i apatije, te u konačnici donosi svoja razmišljanja o informacijama, znanju i mudrosti. Elif Shafak briefly touches on so many big issues in a simple, bite sized way. She reminds us to widen our lense and continue to seek and welcome diversity, understand our anger, frustration, anxiety, while highlighting the importance of communication and taking action and SO MUCH MORE.u doba u kojem je previše informacija, manje znanja i još manje mudrosti... Znanje zahtijeva čitanje. Knjige. Dubinske analize. Istraživačko novinarstvo. Zamislite načas: svijet bez knjiga, bez pripovijedanju, svijet bez empatije bio bi mnogo podjeljenije i samotnije mjesto za život. "