Elif Batuman is an American author, academic, and journalist. Born in New York City to Turkish parents, she grew up in New Jersey. She graduated from Harvard College and received her doctorate in comparative literature from Stanford University, where she taught.
Batuman is currently the writer-in-residence at Koç University. While in graduate school, she studied the Uzbek language in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Her dissertation, titled, “The Windmill and the Giant: Double-Entry Bookkeeping in the Novel,” is about the process of social research and solitary construction undertaken by novelists. In 2007, she was the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. In February 2010, she published her first book, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, which details her experiences as a graduate student.
Author website: http://www.elifbatuman.com/
Books in order of publication:
The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them – 2010
The Idiot – 2017
Either/Or – 2022
Oak Lawn Library Friends 