Main content

Elif Shafak on Anna Karenina

Episode 4 of 5

Elif Shafak first glimpsed Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on a school bookshelf. Years later, she got to read it. Today, Elif imagines what would happen if Anna were to meet her creator.

Five leading writers pick a novel they love and then write an original piece of fiction imagining what happened to the characters after the story ends.

Award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak first glimpsed Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on a bookshelf at school. It was only years later that she managed to get her hands on a copy. The experience stirred her soul. The romance was raw, wrong and real. But the book's ending came as a surprise.

For this Boxing Day edition, Elif imagines what would happen if Anna were able to meet her creator, Tolstoy himself, after the novel's final page.

Producer: Camellia Sinclair

Available now

14 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Boxing Day 2019 22:00
  • Thu 5 Aug 2021 22:45

Featured in...

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast