'We change whilst we are in the midst of writing a book'

‘We change whilst we are in the midst of writing a book. We change, and I dare say we become better people. A novelist is always wiser when inside a novel than when outside. Stories shape their storytellers as much as storytellers shape their stories. We are a different person when we start a book and by the time it is completed, something deep inside has shifted for ever. Stories have an inner power of their own and as anyone who has written a piece of fiction will testify, writers are less the masters than the galley slaves of that mysterious power.'

Elif Shafak, author of The Architect's Apprentice and Turkey's bestselling female novelist, in the Observer.