Elif Shafak unveils Flaubert reimagined through the women he erased

Viking published Elif Shafak's new novel 'In One Brief Moment All Eternity' on 15 October 2026, a 608-page hardback that sweeps across the 19th century from Rouen and Paris to Cairo, Istanbul and Beirut. The British-Turkish author of 'The Island of Missing Trees' retells the life of Madame Bovary author Gustave Flaubert through the women — real and fictional — who shaped him. At the heart of the book is Kuchuk Hanem, an Egyptian ghawazee dancer Flaubert met in Esna in 1850 and who, Shafak argues, has been largely written out of literary history despite inspiring the sensual charge of his most famous heroine. The novel also follows Flaubert's mother Caroline, his lover Louise Colet, his niece Caroline, and composite servant women. Shafak conducted research in three languages across archives in France and Egypt. The book was launched with simultaneous events in London and Istanbul and immediately entered pre-order charts on Waterstones and Penguin's own site.