There are Rivers in the Sky

(Paperback)

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Description

The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, internationally bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

*****

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel set between the 19th century and modern times, about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh.

*****

Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature Ian McEwan

'Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann

'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

Reviews

It will make you think, cry, rage and hope. It is Elif Shafak at her best * The New Statesman *
Gloriously expansive and intellectually rich... a magnificent achievement * The Spectator *
Richly evocative. A fascinating stream of storytelling. * Financial Times *
Engrossing. I turned the pages hungrily, carried by Shafaks energetic prose and confident that it was heading towards a coherent and rewarding ending. As ever, Shafak did not disappoint. * I Paper *
An absorbing novel. Shafak is a novelist whose interest in mapping the intricately related world and its history goes beyond literary device. * Guardian *
Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature -- Ian McEwan
Shafak makes a new home for us in words -- Colum McCann
A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels -- Marian Keyes
A brilliant, unforgettable novel, which raises big ideas of 'who owns the past' with nuance and complexity. Elif Shafak ties together diverse time periods and places in a way that seems both natural and wonderfully unexpected. -- Mary Beard
Bright, vivid and timeless like rivers. -- Philippa Gregory
Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it -- Arundhati Roy
It will surprise no one that this is a brutal, elegant and incredible book. Amazing what Elif Shafak has done here - again! Magic. -- Evie Wyld
An odyssey, an epic, a lament, and a tale of redemption, There are Rivers in the Sky is a clarion call to honor the elemental forces that shape our memories, our histories, and our world. In short, a masterpiece. -- Ruth Ozeki
A book that is astonishing, ingenious and beautiful. A modern classic. Elif Shafak is one of the great writers of our time -- Peter Frankopan
A deep and satisfying sweep of a story combining intellectual pleasures with a transformative empathy. Particular, universal, with head and with heart in perfect balance, this is surely a landmark novel. -- Laline Paull
A great, sweeping, enthralling novel - Elif Shafak's narrative vision is as remarkable and astonishing as ever. Wonderful. -- Will Boyd
Literature on a grand scale, mythic and timeless -- Nadifa Mohamed
There are Rivers in the Sky is an enchanting epic, told through the vantage of single raindrop, where the sacred mysteries of water, science, and poetry collide. In this gorgeous and riverine novel, water is poetry, water is memory. This is a love song to the keepers of our stories and histories, a resounding tribute to the wise women who know the poetry of our rivers. Elif Shafak is one of thema master storyteller whose prose thrums with such gorgeous details and propulsive spirit, flowing with a keen-eyed wisdom that only she could conjure. I came away feeling restored -- Safiya Sinclair
Elif Shafak approaches the world with grace, lyricism, and courage. Confronting societies riven by conflicts over gender, religion, sexuality, nationalism, memory, ideology, and more, Shafak wields the novels artistic power to cut through complacency and orthodoxy with ruthlessness and beauty. Her words and workscompelling and provocativeleave us in a space of light, a clearing from where we can see this world anew. -- Viet Thanh Nguyen
From its bravura opening through to its final pages, There are Rivers in the Sky is a dazzling achievement. Shafaks imagination is a wonder: bold, capacious, beautiful and wise. -- Katie Kitamura
Elif Shafak's beautiful and moving new novel bears the reader along on its marvellous currents. Here, rivers twine with other rivers and lives with other lives across centuries and cultures, as the fate of a single drop of water weaves an intricate tapestry of love and loss -- Robert Macfarlane
Intricate, exhilarating storytelling that is a poetic reminder of how connected we are to one another and to the past. -- Tracy Chevalier
A great epic novel, as swift as a torrent, as deep as an ocean. Elif Shafak at the height of her powers, sweeping us off our feet. -- Leila Slimani
One of the best writers in the world today -- Hanif Kureishi
Wide-ranging, eloquent and lavishly detailed, There are Rivers in the Sky expertly draws its various narratives to a powerful climax -- Abdulrazah Gurnah
There's an elegance to Shafak's storytelling that always draws me, but it is her grit and substance that held me to the last page. Wonderful. -- Bonnie Garmus
A single raindrop links three narrative threads: Victorian London, where Arthur is obsessed with a lost poem after a visit to the British Museum; the River Tigris in 2014 as Narin flees war with her grandmother; and London in 2018 through the eyes of hydrologist Zaleekhah * Grazia - 12 more sizzling summer reads *
One lost poem, two great rivers, three vivid characters from different cultures and times are all united in the ever-changing fate of a single raindrop as it journeys from Victorian London to modern day Turkey in this evocative, immersive epic * The Simple Things - Ticket to read *

Author Bio

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 Halld r Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to 'the renewal of the art of storytelling.'