I' ve read the "Black Milk" straight after "The bastard of Instabul" a really powerful book. In Black Milk, Shafak is writing about the conflicting demands of motherhood and writing.

It could be the conflict between motherhood and any other profession really, as many of us have been faced with the same dilemma. Shafak, also describes the months of her suffering from postpartum depression which affects millions of new mothers every year and has infused her with guilt, anxiety and fear that she could not meet the demands of both, motherhood and writing, simultaneously.

A memoir that also she muses about the lives and work of other female writers from diverse backgrounds—George Elliot, Sylvia Plath, Zelda Fitzgerald and my favourite Simone de Beauvoir.