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Photo: Courtesy of Nil Köksal
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‘As It Happens’ Host Nil Köksal Loves Contemporary Fiction With a Side of Facts
The Istanbul-born veteran CBC journalist takes our Shelf Life questionnaire to reveal her favourite authors and books / BY Shinan Govani / March 14th, 2024
A day at work for Nil Köksal is anything but typical. Take a recent episode of As It Happens, the flagship CBC radio program she started to co-hosting in 2022: After taking her listeners to Gaza, then checking in with a Quebec teacher about the province’s new secularism bill and catching with some people celebrating Leap Year on a cruise ship, she had to recalibrate quickly when news suddenly broke that former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney died. What a gear switch!
Köksal – who was born in Istanbul, Turkey, moved to Canada at age four and was raised in B.C. and Ontario – has more than 20 years of globe-trotting experience at the public broadcaster, where she was a foreign correspondent based in Istanbul, covered the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and produced news documentaries. She needs to stay agile at work, and, unsurprisingly, it reflects her reading life. A life-long bookworm, she brought us up to the date on what fills her up when she is away from the microphone.
What’s the best book you’ve read this year?
The Idiot by Elif Batuman and The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty. Both were birthday gifts from my friend and co-host, Chris Howden. The Idiot rewinds to the mid-1990s. It has dry, dry humour and a coming-of-age story unlike any other I’ve come across, which also happens to coincide with the dawn of email. Gunty’s novel is a darker time capsule, packing in a few very specific examples of the current American experience that you just can’t turn away from.
What book can’t you wait to dive into?
Either/Or, Batuman’s follow-up to The Idiot, is at the top of my nightstand stack. Selin is such a rare protagonist, but instantly relatable.
What’s your favourite book of all time?
Does anyone pick just one? Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels and Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. But there are many others that have made me, me.
What book completely changed your perspective?
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It was the first time a work of non-fiction moved me that deeply. It is impossible not to be enraged as your eyes are opened to what happened to Ms. Lacks and her family. A must-read.
If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be?
Toni Morrison, Zadie Smith and Elena Ferrante (whoever Ms. Ferrante may actually be!). For their fearlessness, clarity and ability to live and write on their own terms. I’d make them dinner, soak up all the writing and life wisdom they could offer, and then we’d go dancing. This will make sense if you know me and if you’ve seen that photo of Toni Morrison dancing in the’ ’70s. We would tear it up!