![]() ![]() “You wanted to know why Anna had to die, and instead they told you that nineteenth century Russian landowners felt conflicted about whether they were really part of Europe.” The real lessons come in the form of her own forays into literature and language, and in an enigmatic email correspondence that ignites with an intense Hungarian classmate, Ivan, who likes Kundera and wears his jeans too short. ![]() Batuman’s autobiographical first novel, The Idiot, is about a freshman at Harvard in the mid-nineties, a tall, ingenuous, and very bright Turkish-American woman who wants to know “what books really mean.” Determined to lead a life “unmarred by laziness, cowardice, or conformity,” Selin is mostly disappointed by her classes. A rubbing of a Pegasus wing by an artist friend hangs overhead her cat, Friday, eyes the pastry before being gently banished. ![]() “It’s so embarrassing and painful to be young,” says Elif Batuman, over brunch at her Bedford Stuyvesant apartment. Photographed by Tom Johnson, Vogue, March 2017 Elif Batuman in a Stella McCartney jacket and trousers, and a Brunello Cuccinelli sweater. ![]()
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