Either/Or

Elif Batuman is a contemporary American author, academic, and journalist. She holds an MA in literature from Harvard College and a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University. She is currently a staff writer at the New Yorker. Either/Or is her third book: She previously published The Idiot (2018) and The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (2010). Although a first-generation Turkish American, Batuman has expressed resistance to the idea of placing her work within the specific context of a Turkish-American literary tradition, and she notes her dislike for authors whose works become “about” their ethno-national identities. Batuman is deeply interested in “classic” literature, with a particular focus on Russian-authored texts. Her own writing, much like the works of short fiction and novels that she finds compelling, is introspective and character driven. In both The Possessed and Either/Or, she expresses the belief that the novel is fundamentally “about” the desire of the protagonist to bring a sense of order, meaning, and coherence to their own experiences that is reminiscent of their favorite novels. Batuman’s writing should be read through this lens and understood as a fictionalized, literary representation of her own alter ego.