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There’s a scream building up in young people

 The author Elif Shafak has said she thinks “there’s a scream building
up” inside many young people, because they feel their future “is being
shaped by older generations”.

“It’s difficult to be young, in this age in particular,” the Turkish-British novelist told the Hay festival.
“It’s their future that’s been broken by previous generations,” she
said, citing Brexit and the climate emergency.

She also spoke of the
“widening inequalities” that the pandemic has exacerbated and said that
it was women, minorities and young people who suffer the consequences
disproportionately. Because young people are less likely than their older
counterparts to be in stable financial positions there was “a very
existential angst” among them, she said.

The idea that young people
“want to scream at us” is one that Shafak explores in her most recent
novel, The Island of Missing Trees, which was shortlisted for the Women’s
prize. In the book 16-year-old Ada, who lives in London with a father who
rarely shares his wartime memories of his native Cyprus, begins to scream
in the middle of a history lesson. Shafak, 50, said she was interested in
the idea that growing up “in a family of silences” might be carrying
frustration that needs to be let out.

 Guardian 4th June 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/04/elif-shafak-theres-a-scream-building-up-in-young-people

June 6, 2022 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized