There Are Rivers In The Sky – Latest Novel By Elif Shafak

There Are Rivers in the Sky

I picked up this latest novel by Elif Shafak, “There Are Rivers in the Sky,” simply because I’m an Elif Shafak fan. This extraordinary and intense story might be the best fiction published in 2024.

In our fast-paced world of Instagram reels, YouTube stories, and other ultra-short-form content, this long narrative takes us through three lives unfolding along the banks of two rivers, separated by miles and eras.

Through Arthur’s slowly unfolding life, we travel through pre-industrial London. Through Narin and Zaleekhah, we remain aware of the present-day world and its problems. We come to understand the sufferings and hardships of marginalized people throughout history to the present day.

Arthur’s story takes place around the middle of the 18th century, while Narin and Zaleekhah’s unfold in 2014 and 2018. It’s amazing how their tales are connected by water, two rivers, and—more importantly—their link to the history and traditions of ancient Mesopotamia.

This story, inspired by many actual historical events, brings to life the rich history, traditions, cuisines, and lives of Mesopotamian people, along with the eccentricities of its rulers. We visualize European life before the Industrial Revolution took place. It’s fascinating to read how Narin and Zaleekhah’s stories connect it all to our modern times.

“There Are Rivers in the Sky” is an intensely powerful story. Its heart lies in ancient history, but it makes us contemplate present-day issues like climate change, extremism, the suffering of women and children in conflict zones, science vs. superstitions, and the ownership of historical artifacts.

It’s a must-read story about history, rivers and water, traditions and deviations from them. Most importantly, through the lives of Arthur, Narin, and Zaleekhah, it becomes a tale of human resilience, passion, and intense love!

Reading Insights

Elif Shafak is a master storyteller. Pick up this book to thoroughly enjoy literature at its finest. It’s a long read—it took me about fifteen hours to complete. The author, with her impeccable descriptions of people, places, events, and emotions, brings a vivid picture before our eyes, completely absorbing us in the story. I encountered many new words while reading and had to refer to the dictionary often. This didn’t feel burdensome, though; it was a joy learning new words. It’s amazing to wander through the life stories of Arthur, Narin, and Zaleekhah, and even more mesmerizing to experience how all three are connected through rivers, water, history, traditions, passion and love.

About There Are Rivers In The Sky (From Goodreads)

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur’s only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family’s ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist and the most widely read female author in Turkey. She writes in both Turkish and English, and has published seventeen books, eleven of which are novels. Her work has been translated into fifty languages. Shafak holds a PhD in political science and she has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and the UK, including St Anne’s College, Oxford University, where she is an honorary fellow. She is a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). An advocate for women’s rights, LGBT rights and freedom of speech, Shafak is an inspiring public speaker and twice a TED Global speaker, each time receiving a standing ovation. Shafak contributes to major publications around the world and she has been awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2017 she was chosen by Politico as one of the twelve people who would make the world better. She has judged numerous literary prizes and is chairing the Wellcome Prize 2019.

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Get This Book

You can buy here There are Rivers in the Sky.