Elif Shafak

Olivia Vinall

there-are-rivers-in-the-sky

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Presented by The Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop Interviews: Series 1 and 2

The Forty Rules of Love

How great artists and their work were shaped by the First World War

Minds at War

The Island of Missing Trees

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

Honour

The Bastard of Istanbul

Three Daughters of Eve

The Gaze

The Architect's Apprentice

The Flea Palace

On Motherhood and Writing

Black Milk

A Personal Meditation on the Dangers of Identity

The Happiness of Blond People

There are Rivers in the Sky

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

It will make you think, cry, rage – and hope. It is Elif Shafak at her best

Gloriously expansive and intellectually rich... a magnificent achievement

Richly evocative. A fascinating stream of storytelling.

Engrossing. I turned the pages hungrily, carried by Shafak’s energetic prose and confident that it was heading towards a coherent and rewarding ending. As ever, Shafak did not disappoint.

An absorbing novel. Shafak is a novelist whose interest in mapping the intricately related world and its history goes beyond literary device.

Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature

A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels

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.

Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it

It will surprise no one that this is a brutal, elegant and incredible book. Amazing what Elif Shafak has done here - again! Magic.

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.

A book that is astonishing, ingenious and beautiful. A modern classic. Elif Shafak is one of the great writers of our time

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.

A great, sweeping, enthralling novel - Elif Shafak's narrative vision is as remarkable and astonishing as ever. Wonderful.

Literature on a grand scale, mythic and timeless

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 them—a 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

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 novel’s artistic power to cut through complacency and orthodoxy with ruthlessness and beauty. Her words and works—compelling and provocative—leave us in a space of light, a clearing from where we can see this world anew.

If you were going on aesthetics lone, the latest novel from Shafak (above) would make a gorgeous gift purely for its mesmerising blue and gold cover. But its contents are even more dazzling. Sweeping between multiple settings and timelines, from Victorian London to modern-day Turkey, it is a story about the lives of three very different characters who are interconnected by a lost poem and a single drop of water

From its bravura opening through to its final pages, There are Rivers in the Sky is a dazzling achievement. Shafak’s imagination is a wonder: bold, capacious, beautiful and wise.

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

...dazzling. Sweeping between multiple settings and timelines, from Victorian London to modern-day Turkey, it's a story about the lives of three very different characters who are interconnected by a lost poem and a single drop of water

iPaper - The 30 best books for Christmas 2024

A meditation on family history, memory and sexual awakening

Anger bubbles over into passion - and then a brilliantly executed twist elevates this love story into something much darker. I've been raving about this all year

Intricate, exhilarating storytelling that is a poetic reminder of how connected we are to one another and to the past.

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.

One of the best writers in the world today

Wide-ranging, eloquent and lavishly detailed, There are Rivers in the Sky expertly draws its various narratives to a powerful climax

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.

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

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

If you are a big fan of books that tie together narratives across time, Elif Shafak has written a great one

...in my own stocking I'd love to find Elif Shafak's There Are Rivers in the Sky... it looks like a glorious feast of a novel, from one of the world's most exhilarating storytellers

My novel of the year is Elif Shafak's There Are Rivers in the Sky, a surprising tale of how water connects us all, with a clever cameo role for the British Museum in the 19th century

Daily Express - Closing a chapter on 2024

...Weaving together these three stories with effortless grace, Elif Shafak reminds us she is one of our most evocative storytellers working today. There's an elegance and lyricism to her writing that makes every sentence feel like a work of art. The book is also as intellectually stimulating as it is page-turning; sometimes desperately sad, but often mesmerisingly beautiful

This monumental opus follows a single drop of water as it creates a backdrop not just for otherwise unconnected lives but for a lost epic poem

The Big Issue - Big Issue's top picks of the year

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.

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
This audiobook is read by Olivia Vinall, and Elif Shafak reads the Note to Reader at the end of the story. 
 
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.’ 
 
***** 
 
‘Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature’ Ian McEwan 
 
'An extraordinary novel, fresh and cleansing, like the rain bouncing off the metal roof of our lives.' Colum McCann 
 
'Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it' Arundhati Roy 
 
'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi 
 
'A brilliant, unforgettable novel' Mary Beard 
 
 
© Elif Shafak 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024

Elif Shafak (Author, Reader) Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-six languages. The author of nineteen books, thirteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak's last novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction. Her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. There Are Rivers in the Sky is her latest novel.

There are Rivers in the Sky

Format:

Buy the book from:

About Elif Shafak

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter