Elif Shafak for In One Brief Moment All Eternity

From the booker and women's prize-shortlisted author of there are rivers in the sky and the island of missing treesDuring 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 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, 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?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?In One Brief Moment All Eternity is a love letter to literature, untold stories, neglected communities, and the enduring spirit of humanity.

When the world feels broken, how do we find the hope to carry on?