Everything that Elif Shafak writes is beautiful. There are Rivers in the Sky is the story of a raindrop, and the beauty starts right there in the title and carries through to the final pages. Those rivers in the sky are at risk and this is a novel about water, about both its’ prolific nature and it’s’ scarcity. It’s about the policies and preciousness of of water, in a time where it is becoming more scarce than ever.
Scandals over the illegal dumping of sewage into rivers are on the rise. Here in our little corner of England, signs are up permanently warning us against bathing, swimming, paddling in our beautiful rivers. Rivers that carried us as children, cooled us in the heat, soothed us in the warmth, are no longer safe. So this book is especially topical but also perhaps because this is nothing new – it’s just that it becomes more topical the more well off the countries are that are experiencing it. There are many who will have felt the plight of the rivers for centuries and lifetimes longer than we have.
‘Words… are like birds… when you publish books, you are setting caged birds free. You never know whom those words will reach, whose hearts succumb to their sweet song.’
The book follows the lifespan of a raindrop as it travels across generations, continents and centuries. Much like The Island of Missing Trees, with a single fig tree as the main protagonist, it’s an ode to past-times. We meet mudlarkers, erudite kings, despots, healers and a hydrologist.
A rich tapestry of themes are woven throughout the time periods and the characters with a strong emphasis on parental abandonment and neglect, within all three timelines. Popular historical figures are brought to life, and both historic and current wars are exposed. A significant spotlight is on the Yazidi culture and the devastating persecution of the community is a prime example of the topical nature of this book.
‘A kiss is two drops of water finding their way to each other.’
It is an extraordinary novel full of history, myths and human experience, entwining strangers with a single drop of water.
About the Book
This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water.
In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur’s only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: Nineveh and Its Remains.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought from the holy sit of Lalish in Iraq. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people.
In 2018 London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage. Zaleekhah foresees a life drained of all love and meaning – until an unexpected connection to her homeland changes everything.
A dazzling feat of storytelling from one of the greatest writers of our time, Elif Shafak’s There are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel that spans centuries, continents and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains, and waterdrops:
‘Water remembers. It is humans who forget.’
About The Author
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into fifty-five languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak’s latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Her previous novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize; longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as Blackwell’s Book of the Year.
She is a Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature. Shafak was awarded the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to ‘the renewal of the art of storytelling.’
[Photo; Elif Shafak]
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