This online streaming only event will be specially filmed in Hall One at Kings Place

After the live broadcast, ticket holders and on-demand bookers will be able to watch this performance until midnight on 31 March. For information on how to use KPlayer please refer to our guide or see the KPlayer FAQ.

Award-winning novelist, TED speaker and activist Elif Shafak returns to Jewish Book Week with her concise and urgent call for conscious optimism in the age of division. After 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World was shortlisted for both the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Booker Prize, she turns to non-fiction with this pocket-sized, must-read book, asking how we can keep hold of our optimism. She will be in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Mark Lawson.

Click here to  purchase a copy of How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak from Blackwell’s.

In memory of Robin Hyman

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published 18 books, 11 of which are novels. Her work has been translated into 54 languages. Her latest novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize; and chosen Blackwell’s Book of the Year. Her previous novel, The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by BBC among 100 Novels that Shaped Our World. 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.

Shafak is a Fellow and a Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature. She is 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 speech, 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, and chaired the Wellcome Prize and is presently judging the PEN Nabokov Prize.

Mark Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author. Specialising in culture and the arts, he is best known for presenting the flagship BBC Radio 4 arts programme Front Row between 1998 and 2014. He is also a Guardian columnist, and presents Mark Lawson Talks To… on BBC Four.