The Idiot by Elif Batuman: Book Discussion

In her 2017 semi-autobiographical debut novel about Selin, a Turkish-American Harvard freshman in the mid-1990s, who navigates language, love, and self-discovery through her studies, a summer teaching English in Hungary, and a long, confusing email correspondence with an older math student named Ivan, Batuman presents a modern coming-of-age story with lessons about academic knowledge versus lived experiences.