There Are Rivers in the Sky (2024)

5 stars isn't enough.

Elif Shafak is so good at historical epic fiction. There Are Rivers in the Sky gives us three personal histories with Nineveh at their heart.

We have Arthur Smith (based on the Assyriologist George Smith) born to a poor family who has a phenomenal memory and a brain that works like noone else's. He begins his working life in a publishing house where his vast intellect and curiosity are encouraged by his employers but his real passion and interest in Nineveh begins when he sees the lamassus sculptures being brought to the British Museum.

Secondly we have Zaleekah, recently split from her husband and contemplating her life choices. Her interest is in rainfall and it's life cycle (which, on its own, would make for a fascinating novel). She moves to a houseboat and meets a tattooist who reignited her interest in cuneiform.

Finally we have Narin, a young Yazidi girl who lives on the banks of the Tigris. Her grandmother is determined that her favourite should be baptised in the Valley of Lalish in Iraq.

In setting the story Shafak gives us a wonderful backdrop of the city of Nineveh which was destroyed by fire after civil war. It was home to a vast library which held the clay tablets now at the British Museum.

The history of the city is fascinating and the way Elif Shafak weaves the ancient history into the story of these three people is simply sublime. The three stories feel connected from the beginning and we are given little insights into what will happen to them all the way through.

The stories are often quite emotionally fraught and deal with some heavyweight issues such as the rise of ISIS, the destruction of the valleys by the construction of dams, sale/removal of historical artefacts.

The research on this book must have been phenomenal. It covers so much ground. But the stories are still so beautifully told and I cared about each one of the main characters. It is incredibly emotive at times.

I loved this book. It will definitely rank as one of my favourites for this year. As an author she blows me away with her story telling especially with an epic tale. Absolutely mesmerising. I listened to qanun music, I looked up the geography, I looked at images of the artefacts and downloaded the Eoic of Gilgamesh. It's the sort of book that inspires you to read more history.

Very highly recommended.

Thankyou very much to Netgalley and Penguin for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.

Looks like 2024 will be a good year 🥹

Woher stammt ein Tropfen Wasser? Wir wissen, woher er gerade kommt, doch wo war er zuvor? In Elif Shafaks neuestem Roman Am Himmel die Flüsse folgen wir einem Tropfen Wasser. Er fällt um 630 v.u.Z. als Regen vom Himmel und landet im Haar eines assyrischen Königs. Wir verlieren den Tropfen für viele Jahre aus den Augen und begegnen ihm 1840 als Schneeflocke am Ufer der Themse wieder. Von da an treffen wir ihn bis ins Jahr 2018 immer wieder. Auf dieser Reise lernen wir auch drei Charaktere kennen, deren Schicksale sich ganz am Ende vereinen: Arthur, König der Abwasserkanäle und Elendsquartiere, der sich als Wunderkind entpuppt und trotz widriger Umstände an den Tigris reist, um dort zum Gilgamesch-Epos zu forschen; Zaleekhah, eine junge Frau irakischer Abstammung, von Beruf Hydrologin, deren Leben an einem Scheitelpunkt steht; und schließlich Narin, ein kleines ezidisches Mädchen, das von ihrer Großmutter eine besondere Gabe geerbt hat. Sie alle sind Teil des Wassers, was sich bei genauerem Hinsehen schon in den Überschriften zeigt.
In diesem Roman steckt soviel Wissen, dass es sich unmöglich in den wenigen Zeilen einer Rezension angemessen wiedergeben lässt. Es geht um die Unterdrückung der Frauen, den Terror des IS, die Zerstörung von Lebensraum, Vorurteile gegenüber anderen Kulturen und Religionen. Wichtig ist auch die Frage, wo antike Kunstwerke denn nun hingehören: An die Orte von denen sie stammen, auch wenn sie dort der Gefahr der Zerstörung ausgesetzt sind? Oder doch geschützt in ein Museum, auch wenn dieses weit vom Ursprungsort entfernt ist?
Elif Shafak erreicht mit Am Himmel die Flüsse einen Höhepunkt ihrer Erzählkunst. So kunstvoll wurden selten Erzählstränge verwoben, so geschickt Wissen verpackt. Wie das Wasser fließt hier alles ineinander und als Leser*in fließt man einfach mit. Besonders schön ist auch die Entwicklung zu sehen, die das Können der Autorin gemacht hat. Vor zehn Jahren schrieb sie Der Architekt des Sultans. Auch das ist ein wunderbares Werk, doch ihr aktuelles Buch geht noch eine Spur weiter, ist noch stimmiger. Für mich ein kleines Meisterwerk. Und natürlich wieder einmal großartig übersetzt von Michaela Grabinger.

A triptych of a highly enriching tale, with so much erudition, and YET a page turner. Beautifully written spanning centuries, bringing to life the glory that was Nineveh. The amazing feats of architecture and art of Mesopotamia have not been as lauded as those of the Greco-Romans, even though they predate those eras. I learned so much about life along the Tigris -- the statuary, cuneiform writing, the epic of Gilgamesh, lapis lazuli, but then also about life along the Thames thousands of years later during the Victorian Era, and then up to almost present day horrors of living under ISIS. Not to mention the life sustaining importance of water. If I were to compare this to anything, it would be to Anthony Doerr's Cloud Cuckoo Land, with its three seemingly disparate threads being woven so beautifully at the end. Elif Shafak, an author new to me, has been prolific and if this is any gauge, someone I will go back and read whatever she has written.

This will definitely be on my "top books of the year" list!

The scope of the novel is an ambitious one: three timelines, each connected to Mesopotamia in a different way, woven together by water, memory, loss. In the 1800s, a boy with a brilliant mind named Arthur is born in the slums of London along the Thames river, with an uncanny interest in ancient Nineveh; in 2014, a Yazidi girl in Turkey named Narin travels up the Tigris river to Iraq with her grandmother to visit their ancestral village next to the ruins of Nineveh; and in 2018 a young hydrologist named Zaleekhah grapples with depression in a houseboat on the Thames.

The book opens with a drop of water falling on King Ashurbanipal's head in his Nineveh palace back in ancient times. That same droplet of water evaporates and rains back down to earth over and over across centuries, retaining small pieces of memory along the way. This is what begins to tie the three seemingly disconnected storylines together, though as we read on we find there are more connections between them than we initially knew.

The writing in this book is absolutely gorgeous, and I loved the musings about memory and meaning, and what water represents in Yazidi culture, and ancient wisdom and culture, and what lives on after civilizations crumble. It was stunningly beautiful at times.

I also loved getting to know the characters. I will admit that I found Zaleekhah to be a little less interesting than Narin and Arthur -- who I felt deeply emotionally invested in -- but I enjoyed all three plotlines nonetheless, and I think they all worked well together.

The settings were just as alive as the human characters, too, especially with the rich history they brought with them. Ancient Nineveh, where the story of the Ark took place, where ancient Mesopotamian scribes innovated cuneiform writing on clay tablets, was so interesting. The Yazidi villages, as well as their culture and traditions, were fascinating to learn about, too.

I should note that there are quite a lot of content warnings for this book. Suicidal thoughts, violence and armed conflict on-page, and discussions of sexual violence (which thankfully took place off-page) were all present.

5 stars 🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing Group for this ARC to read and review.

The central narrative in this epic tale follows the life of King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums from when he was born on the shores of the polluted Thames riverbank in 1840 through to his death along the Tigris in 1876. During his short life he was wildly enamored of Mesopotamia, and especially the ancient artifacts that were beginning to be funneled into the British Museum at that time. While his life in full is charted in this novel in beautiful and lyric detail, he is but one third of the narrative driving force behind this amazing book. His life is the connecting link between the two other narratives that interweave throughout the book, that of Narin, a 9-year-old Yazhidi girl, and Zaleekah, a hydrologist who is going through an eruptive life change. Stepping back one more level, is the introductory tale around which everyone in the story revolves: King Ashurbanipal's Mesopotamian court and a special tablet of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" that he reveres. And yet there is still one more level that Elif Shafak weaves through her epic: a single drop of water that literally touches every main character and holds the memories of the universe in its simple yet timeless composition of molecules. To say that Shafak is juggling a lot is not an understatement, but the reader never once thinks that it is overloaded. She is able to weave a tapestry as fine as any rug, and as illusorily simple. To say more would be to give away too many of the beautiful secrets that are hidden throughout this book but, suffice it to say, this will be a novel to stand up against some of the best of epic literature. Two recent epic books are certainly touchstones - "The Covenant of Water" and "Demon Copperhead" - but it is "The English Patient" that continued to come to mind. Not that "There Are Rivers in the Sky" is derivative in any way, but these are the heights that Elif Shafak is able to attain. This comes recommended as highly as possible.

(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)

The several stories told within here span different times, and in turn have different core characters, different plots, and their own separate moments of intense tragedy and uplifting joy - but they also constantly cross one another, sharing imagery, history, and themes. It’s a bit like a single river carrying multiple different currents. And no matter which plot line I found myself in, there was never a moment where I wasn’t enjoying the reading experience to the fullest. Shafak’s characters were wonderfully real and complex, her writing was vivid and immersive, and I loved every little detail about ancient Mesopotamian history or the Yazidi people that richly permeated every single individual narrative. This is definitely an excellent addition to any library shelf (be it public, academic, or personal home collection), and honestly, it’s currently my favorite historical fiction read of 2024.

Elif Shafak is one of my favorite authors. Her depth of knowledge is remarkable. The book begins in ancient Mesopotamia with a drop of water and braids a story of three characters and two rivers with the one drop of water that starts the story. The reader travels from Iraq to London and back to Iraq. There is Arthur, born in poverty on the banks of the Thames in the 19th century, his passion is translating the ancient tiles of the epic Gilgamesh, Narin, a Yazidi girl who is to be baptized in the Tirgris in 2014 and is caught on her journey in a terrible, tragic genocide. Zaleekhah is a Hydrologist living on a houseboat on the Thames in 2018. The lives are complex, but the theme that there is no humanity without water is strong and consistent. Water is really the main character in this novel.
The writing is beautiful and some of the chapters feel like a fable. I learned a lot about Iraq and the Yazidi who I had not heard of. It is not a quick read and there were times I wished for more plot or that I felt more connected to the characters. That said, it's an amazing, one of a kind novel.
Thank you to Netgally and Penguin Random House books for an opportunity to read and review this book.

This is the kind of book I absolutely love, the kind that has my head spinning while I put aside all other books, unable to stop reading. The kind of book that needs rereading because you know you will learn more each time. With wonderful characters and storytelling it deeply explores the human experience across history.

Water is the vehicle that unites the story. The rivers of Mesopotamia and London, the cycle of water that is timeless. The story of Gilgamesh and ancient Nineveh motivates the characters. The destruction of a civilization and a culture, the trauma of war, and religious division afflict the characters. Storytelling gives meaning and understanding.

A single drop of water has come to each character. The raindrop that lands on the king of Nineveh’s hair later becomes the snowflake that lands in the mouth of a newborn baby, son of a London mudlark, who as an adult searches for the missing tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The drop of water travels back and forth across the world and across time, touching the lives of persecuted Yazidi and contemporary people in London. The drop is part of the neverending rivers of the sky, an eternal cycle.

Shafak weaves the characters’ destinies together to reach a heartbreaking conclusion.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

This was an amazing intricately interwoven story - essentially three storyline strands across the 19th and 21st centuries that are anchored by the Tigris and Thames rivers. A single drop of water that dates back to olden times - to King Ashurbhanipal of Mesopotamia in the ancient city of Nineveh - connects them all forever. Elif Shafak’s books are always laden with meticulous research and I think she’s outdone herself in this one! I have made notes to go back to several references to do research - whether it’s history, the Yazidi people, literature. I enjoyed each storyline strand, my favorite was Narin and her grandmother. The one I was a bit skeptical about was the Arthur storyline. I questioned his career trajectory a bit, despite his photographic memory, but I still enjoyed it immensely and was blown away by the complex research required for Arthur’s life story. And it was a relief that Zaleekhah’s initial mental state eases and she finds purpose, notwithstanding the burden she carries. The book unfolds layer by layer through each storyline strand, so be warned that readers may get a bit impatient like I did - as I was trying to figure out how all the pieces fit together…and they definitely did. Overall, I very much enjoyed the book and Elif Shafak has done it again - given us another book laden with tough themes, complex issues, a bit of magical realism, and beautiful language which conveys so much. There’s so much to think about and ruminate long after the last page is turned, and that’s definitely the hallmark of a great read. I know I’ll be re-reading this book again and again to parse out yet more insights and connections and will be doing research on many of the references interspersed throughout the book. Because of all this and more, I highly recommend this book and gave it 5 stars. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Elif Shafak is the master of historical and literary fiction. She's the high priestess of weaving narratives, three distinct stories unified by one common thread, coming together at the end. I have read pretty much all of this author's bibliography and I am confident to say that it's her best work so far (even though i'll always be a 40 Rules ol Love girly deep down) I have learnt so so so much about Yazidis and the genocide, about their relationship to the land, to nature, to water. Water was a character in this book, in fact, she was the true main character! One single drop of water connecting every single character together. Aaaah, I found that I'm just not that articulate when I adore a book. Absolutely EPIC. Good luck waiting until August and ENJOY to all the lucky ones who have a proof.
Deeply thankful to Netgalley for my ARC!

enkiduuuuu

Ein G R O ß A R T I G E R, märchenhafter, orientalisch-fantastischer Roman mit wundervollen Figuren, hochspannenden Erzählsträngen und einem bemerkenswerten Erzählstil. Wirklich zu empfehlen!

5 blinkende Sterne 🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for the arc.

This one absolutely broke me!
Beautifully lyrical writing interweaving three different stories in 3 different timelines, all pulled together by recurring themes of water, Yizidi culture and the Epic of Gilgamesh! This book deals with issues of religious intolerance and hatred, geopolitics, and socio-economic privilege. Shafak also discusses who should get to voice their stories and who should decide which peoples, cultures and artefacts are saved or remembered e.g. talking about the looting of cultural artifacts by C19 archeologists Shafak writes that Museums are “actively taking part in determining what is worth preserving for posterity…in deciding what will be remembered a museum, any museum, is also deciding, in part, what will be forgotten”. Immensely powerful but not preachy. I loved this.

Wow. What an incredible journey this book was!

There Are Rivers in the Sky tells the story of three characters across continents and centuries, with seemingly no connection between them at first: Arthur, an impoverished though gifted boy in Victorian England, Narin, a Yazidi girl in modern-day Turkey, who comes a long line of female faqra, or seers, and Zaleekhah, a middle-aged hydrologist going through a divorce in modern-day London. Like water swirling in currents, Elif's narrative takes us between their lives, as their stories seem to converge then drift apart, with little drops of commonality flowing through them. As much as this book is about Arthur, Narin, and Zaleekhah, it is the overarching story of a water droplet and the memory it retains; it explores how stories, like the Epic of Gilgamesh, travel through time and leaves an impact through centuries; it's concerned with humanity's destruction of the natural world and the history that disappears with it. I sunk into this novel, and found myself lost in its current. An exciting upcoming release by an author whose voice is lyrical, wise, and comforting!

4.5. What an amazing story and journey, following a drop of water through the centuries, from biblical times, to the 1840s, to the present, starting in Mesopotamia, Nineveh, England, Turkey, and Iraq. I love historical fiction as I often learn about times in history or events that I don’t really know a lot about. That is definitely true of this novel. A very creative novel that follows the story of three characters, King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums in the mid nineteenth century, in London; Narin, a Yazidi girl in Turkey and Iraq in 2014; and Zaleekah, a hyrdrologist in London in 2018 with middle eastern roots. The Tigris in Mesopotamia and the Thames tie these characters together to weave a beautiful, yet heartwrenching story of each of their individual journeys—poverty, starvation, ethnic cleansing, the plunder of middle eastern artifacts—with water as the backbone of all cultures and the impact on their lives and ultimately on the future of the world. The novel also touches on many historical moments, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, the destruction of Nineveh, the centuries long struggles of the Yazidis, and climate change. It is hard to describe all the events and people in this novel as there are so many, but that is what I found most captivating, and in my view, Ms Shafak did it so well as not to be confusing. The characters are so well defined. Ms. Shafak constructed a very engaging novel. Obviously very well researched. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for a candid and honest review.

What an amazing novel I wouldn't have read but for Netgalley's offer of an ARC copy. So, of course, my profound and humble thanks from this reader for such an amazing book.

It's a book about water, and the memory of water, and the interconnections between three people (maybe four if you count Ashurbanipal of Nineveh) and two rivers, the Tigris of Mesopotamia and the Thames of London. When "King Arthur of the Slums and Sewers" was born on the muddy banks of the river, I knew this was going to be a tear-jerker. .

The story moves between three people, a young British scholar Arthur Smyth (really George Smith, the Assyrologist who discovered and translated the Epic of Gilgamesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_... ) and two modern women, a young Yazidi girl, Narin, living on the banks of the Tigris, and a Londoner dealing with divorce and childhood trauma. The story flows slowly and beautifully to its conclusion. I was satisfied with the ending, and found myself going down several Internet rabbit holes on many of the places and peoples.

I think Uncle Malek was my favorite character!

Kurzmeinung
Vielen Dank an Netgalley und dem Hanser Verlag sowie Argon Verlag AVE GmbH für das kostenlose Rezensionsexemplar.
Hier haben wir in jedem Fall ein Jahres-, wenn nicht ein Lebens-Highlight. Was Frau Shafak hier erschaffen hat, hat mich in jeder Timeline, der großen Themenvielfalt und auf allen Ebenen zutiefst berührt und sehr begeistert.
Die einzelnen Elemente der Geschichte werden durch Wasser verbunden. Wasser ist das Element unseres Lebens, unsere Herkunft. Ich liebe Wasser, bin gerne am, im und auf dem Wasser und diese Leidenschaft in mir hat Elif Shafak meisterhaft angesprochen.
Die Charaktere sind alle hervorragend ausgearbeitet. Arthur, was hab ich Arthur geliebt!
Ganz persönlich begeistert hat mich, dass es auch um Niseba ging. Ich habe bisher niemanden getroffen, der Niseba (hier Nisaba) kennt, die Göttin der Erzählkunst. Niseba war früher mein Internet-Name. Wie wunderbar, hier von ihr erzählt zu wissen.
Vom alten Mesopotamien bis in die Gegenwart Europas, grandios und poetisch verwobene Schicksale und übergreifende Themen, wie Liebe, Macht, Politik, Menschlichkeit, Wissenschaft und vieles mehr.... Shafak scheint von Niseba geküsst.
Wenn ihr nur ein Buch dieses Jahr kauft, lasst es dieses sein!
#AmHimmeldieFlüsse #NetGalleyDE

So many thought-provoking themes and ideas run through this marvelous novel. These are just a few:
*Memory, in both nature and people, should be valued and heeded. Arthur is the only character that spans the entirety of the book and he has the gift of remembering everything from his birth onward. A solitary man, he is born in abject poverty and ends up devoting his life to translating THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH from cuneiform on clay tablets recorded centuries BC.
* Ethical dilemmas appear throughout involving the theft of ancient artifacts from digs in Iraq and buying of human organs. Both seem to benefit those with money and harm/cheat those who don’t.
*Ethnic cleansing occurs regularly in history. In this novel it deals with a religious minority in Iraq with mentions of current dictators in the Middle East.
*Climate change is not new but this author incorporates it and pollution into the novel to demonstrate the peril facing our waterways today.

The language is very poetic. The land and its history come alive and the author’s message is powerful. This is truly a book deserving of awards and a wide readership.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC to read and review.

What a strange, beautiful and complicated book. Interviewing the stories of four distinct narrators over millennia and continents united by a drop of water and connection to an ancient poem (the Epic of Gilgamesh). At times, the story was desperately brutal and sad, particularly the sections about religious persecution and the evil done in the name of God. At other times, it was sweet and hopeful, with a reminder of the importance of art and poetry to maintaining our humanity. Recommended. Well worth the read. I predict this will be a best seller and award winner.

Elif Shafak verknüpft die Schicksale des ungewöhnlich begabten Jungen Arthur aus einem Londoner Armenviertel (ab 1840), der 9jährigen Narin, die in der Gegenwart (2014) endlich zur Taufe in jesidischer Tradition in den Irak reisen soll und der Hydrologin Zaleekhah (2018), die in London ein Hausboot auf der Themse mietet und sich mit Herkunft und Traditionen ihrer Familie auseinandersetzen muss. Die Rahmenhandlung in der Gegenwart wirft die Frage auf, wie der Grabstein für „Arthur, König der Abwasserkanäle und Elendsquartiere“ ins Lalischtal des heutigen Irak gelangt sein könnte.

Die vielfältigen Verknüpfungen der Figuren reichen von Tafeln in Keilschrift aus der Bibliothek Assurbarnipals, über ein Buch zu Ninive, das Arthurs Forscherdrang anstachelt, das „Mudlarken“ im Schlick der Themse, Wasser als Grundlage des Ackerbaus, als Überträger von Krankheiten, als Kriegsanlass oder als Reiseweg bis zu einem Dammbauprojekt der Gegenwart, das den Vorwand für Völkermord liefert. Die Figuren könnten zudem durch den Wasserkreislauf verbunden sein, da alle drei Personen in entscheidenden Lebenssituationen einen Wassertropfen, eine Träne oder eine Schneeflocke wahrnehmen. Begleitet wird Shafaks komplexer Plot mit Fragen u. a. nach der weiblichen Rolle in Dichtung und Erzählkunst, der Sehergabe, Ertaubung, der Diskriminierung und Vernichtung von Minderheiten, Menschenhandel, Sklaverei und der Aneignung historischer Artefakte durch europäische Archäologen.

Penibel recherchiert und weit ausholend erzählt, hat mich der Roman besonders in der ersten Hälfte gefesselt, in der Arthur als absoluter Amateur, aber mit ungewöhnlicher Gedächtnisleistung die Übersetzung eines Keilschrifttextes beginnt. In unmittelbarer Umgebung seiner Tätigkeit im British Museum befindet sich in der Gegenwart das Tattoo-Studio von Nen, deren Hausboot Zaleekhah mietet und die widerum Lebensweisheiten in Keilschrift tätowiert. Die Pumpe, deren Schwengel 1854 in London Dr. John Snow abmontieren ließ, damit eine Cholera-Epidemie beendete, und ihre Bedeutung für Arthur zeigt u. a. Shafaks Liebe zum Detail und ihre umfassende Recherche.

Weit ausholend und erstklassig recherchiert, hat mich Elif Shafaks Roman „einer eingewanderten Autorin, die nicht in ihrer Muttersprache schreibt“, wie sie im Nachwort anfügt, keinen Moment gelangweilt und mir tiefen Einblick in die Figuren ermöglicht. Durch Kapitelüberschriften war jederzeit deutlich, an welchem Ort und in welcher Epoche ich mich gerade befinde. Drei zentrale Figuren, zwei große Flüsse in zwei Regionen – ein großartiger Roman.

After the wonderful Island of Missing Trees, I was so excited to read Elif Shafak's latest; it was a privilege to receive a proof. It doesn't disappoint. Starting with a king in ancient Ninevah, themes of water and the poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, connect three intertwined narratives and three timelines. Arthur, born 1840 - on the banks of the Thames and raised in poverty in Victorian London. Narin in 2014 - a nine-year-old Yazidi girl in Turkey, waiting to be baptised in the Yazidi faith at the holy temple in Iraq. Zaleekhah in 2018 - a hydrologist moving into a houseboat on the Thames after a failed marriage.

The character of water itself is central and runs throughout. Two famous rivers in very different environments - the Thames and the Tigris - provide the backdrop to the lives of Arthur, Narin and Zaleekhah. Humanity's tendency to take something so crucial to its survival for granted and force the course of waterways to accommodate our needs is a key theme. Shafak's writing invokes sadness for rivers defiled and buried by human waste and expansion.

Arthur, Narin and Zaleekhah are so well-crafted but Shafak also fills secondary characters with life. The stories span centuries and geography but embrace so many moments of intimate humanity, hardship and sorrow, wonder, joy and resilience. The need for connection. Arthur, despite his humble birth, is blessed with a remarkable memory that shapes his life and destiny, yet does not know where he belongs. Narin's home and people are under threat. Zaleekhah looks for a new life. Home is people. Shafak deftly uses history and science to flesh out their stories. I wanted to explore so many rabbit holes - the rivers of London, the Yazidi people, historical artefacts, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia. Shafak covers huge themes: genocide, environment, plunder of artefacts. But the writing is always exquisite, touching and memorable. The relationship between Narin and her grandmother, Arthur and his mentor, a river confined to a conduit above a Tube station. There are moments that will anger you, fill you with wonder and break your heart. I know I will keep coming back to this one. No question that this was 5 stars for me.

A new Elif Shafak book is always a literary delight and treat so much so that reading this new novel was given time and thought- returning to certain sections- dovetailing into online history and geography and exploring the Epic of Gilgamesh

This is a multi layered and complex novel and is worthy of close attention and appreciation.

This is a love song to rivers and water - their relationship with man and their essential role in our lives.

This is a novel about three lives :

King Arthur of the Sewers- a man born in the 1800s on the bank of the River Thames whose unique life carries him from extreme poverty to working at the British Museum - celebrated by society -and onwards to Nineveh ( modern day Mosul ) where he endeavours to piece together the Epic poem of Gilgamesh through his ability to read cuneiform; and his profound connection with the Yazidi and Leila - a faqra - who enchants him .

Narin- a young Yazidi girl whose family ancestry reveals women with remarkable skills - diviners of premonitions and discovering water; she and her grandmother travel to Iraq after discovering their home in Hasankejf is to be flooded by the construction of a dam which subsequently finds them caught up within the persecution and on going genocide of their community.

Zaleekhah- a scientist who studies water and the impact of climate change upon this most valued natural resource; as she ends her marriage she becomes friends with Nen - a tattoo artist who has a deep fascination with Assyrian history and inks cuneiform on to visitors. Together they build a connection that brings cultures and time together

The lives of these three individuals is meticulously told ; inter connected through historical events and artefacts- each battling to comprehend the world around them- the human capacity to damage that which is precious and try to understand the greed and impact of the rich ,powerful and extreme fundamentalists.

Broader themes are explored- water pollution - disease( cholera in the Victorian era and the emergence in the world today) .- the dying of rivers and vast areas of land through poisons knowingly polluted by man Empires pilfering/stealing ancient artefacts ( Ashurbanipal palace and modern day Mosul) and modern day illegal trades in the theft of items from different historical cultures and civilisations.

This is a book to savour, to reflect upon, to learn from - this is a book that deserves close scrutiny and plaudits - the research and complexity of the plot is incredible- yet the plot never ceases to intrigue and entertain.

A true tour de force- the wisdom within this novel is powerful . The denouement is perfect and leaves you with deeper thoughts and questions.

My book of 2024 !!

Quotes:

Water is the consummate immigrant- trapped in transit and never able to settle.

More and more he comes to realise that people fall into three camps : those who hardly, if ever, see beauty, even when it strikes them between the eyes; those who recognize it only when it is made apparent to them; and those rare souls who find beauty everywhere they turn, even in the most unexpected places.

‘When you publish books, you are setting caged birds free. They can go wherever they please. They can fly over the highest walls and across vast distances, settling in the mansions of the gentry, in farmsteads and labourers’ cottages alike. You never know whom those words will reach, whose hearts will succumb to their sweet songs.’

Clock-time, however punctual it may purport to be, is distorted and deceptive. It runs under the illusion that everything is moving steadily forward, and the future, therefore, will always be better than the past. Story-time understands the fragility of peace, the fickleness of circ*mstances, the dangers lurking in the night but also appreciates small acts of kindness. That is why minorities do not live in clock-time. They live in story-time.

‘Hatred is a poison served in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire–because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of pride! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind– when people hate those they have hurt.’ ‘But why?’ ‘Because the tree remembers what the axe forgets.’

In Elif Shafak's latest novel, There are Rivers in the Sky, two rivers take center stage. One is the river Tigris in ancient Mesopotamia and current day Turkey and Iraq, the other is the river Thames in London. Shafak takes the reader on a journey through time, starting with a single drop of rain, in 630 BCE in Nineveh during the reign of king Ashurbanipal, the last great king of Assyria.

"Later, when the storm has passed, everyone will talk about the destruction it left behind, but no one, not even the king himself, will remember that it all began with a single raindrop."

This might have been the best first sentence of a book I've read for a couple of years. I was intrigued from the very beginning. This single raindrop is the thread that runs through the whole of the novel. It introduces the reader to one of the novel's main characters, Arthur Smyth. In 1840, his poor mother, Arabella, gave birth to Arthur on the muddy banks of the river Thames. It is where he receives his nickname, King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. Upon his birth the single raindrop falls again from the sky, this time as a snowflake, and into the newborn baby's mouth.

Arthur grows up to be a peculiar boy, with an interest in Mesopotamia, and working his way up out of the slums. He manages to get himself a position at the prestigious British Museum, where he studies ancient tablets from Mesopotamia and discovers the famous poem The Epic of Gilgamesh. He travels to Nineveh, near the river Tigris, in search of missing pieces of the poem.

Near the river Tigris, in the year 2014, Narin's story is set. Narin is a young girl of the Yazidi faith. She lives with her father and grandmother in Turkey. The family wants Narin to be baptised in the holy Valley of Lalish in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. This storyline introduces the reader to the Yazidis, a people of a heavily persecuted religion, resulting in the historical Yazidi genocide in 2014.

This part of the story interested me the most, as I do not remember being taught about the Yazidi faith during my studies. As some of you might have read on my blog before I have studied Religious Studies. Perhaps it has been introduced to the curriculum following the genocide in 2014. It shows I have some catching up to do!

Then there is a storyline set in 2018. This storyline is centred around Zaleekhah Clarke, a young woman in London, who has just left her husband and has rented a houseboat on the river Thames. I can hear you think, 'What does she have to do with it all?' Well you might have figured out already that water is one of the key themes of Shafak's novel. Zaleekhah is a scientist, Dr. Z. Clarke, hydrologist.

All these different storylines, Shafak manages to bring them together perfectly. I would love to describe how she does this, but that would spoil the whole reading experience. All I can say is that it is masterfully done. Shafak's writing is beautiful. Even though the storylines are set in totally different times and settings, I felt as if I was there with them. Going through the highs and lows with the characters. Especially the genocide parts are hard to read, but it is so important that everyone knows what is happening even today in other regions of the world.

Please do not let the harsh historical and present day events keep you from reading this beautiful and at the same time educational novel!

Elif Shafak is back with an ambitious novel, and perhaps her best yet. A masterful take on historical fiction, Shafak invites readers into a world where three different storylines are beautifully intertwined across different timelines, and are all connected by a single drop of water.

We are introduced to three different, yet interconnected protagonists from different eras and locales. In Victorian London, Arthur, a gifted boy from the slums, is thrust into a broader world when he encounters a book Nineveh and Its Remains, this tale leads him to an obsession with Mesopotamian history, anchoring his life’s journey.

In modern-day Turkey, we meet Narin, a Yazidi girl travelling a perilous journey along with her grandmother to the sacred waters of Lalish, in order to be baptised. Her peaceful life is shattered by violence amid a landscape marred by conflict, she seeks refuge and to reconnect with her ancestral heritage.

In contemporary London, Zaleekhah, a hydrologist recovering from a broken marriage, she finds solace in a houseboat on the Thames River. Her story is embedded with the rivers she studies, she reflects on love and loss, and her enduring memories that serve as a crucial link within the story’s broader tapestry.

At the heart of this novel, is a single drop of water, beginning with a drop on King Ashurbanipal’s head, this droplet’s journey through evaporation and rain, bridges the characters together. Shafak’s prose was beautiful to read, and though the novel is an ambitious one, I had no trouble following along the narratives, and found it to have weaved together perfectly at the end. This novel is a remarkable achievement on how water, history, and memory intertwine to shape our identities and experiences. It was a beautiful story, and one that had pushed me to research more about these parts of history I didn’t know much about. Highly recommend.

I don't think I even have a choice but to give the book five stars?

I mean the amount of research and thought put into this is almost unbelievable. I would believe it though if an expose revealed that it was actually a team of writers who came up with this after working nonstop for approximately five years straight only subsisting on Ramon noodles (or insert its equivalent) and taking direction from the fever dreams of this author, which they had to translate from the ancient text scribbled onto ancient clay as described here. That's the depth of such a project and boy this book must have taken pure dedication to finish.

It's one of those books that I cannot even attempt to summarize because it won't make any sense at all. It simply just works. Was it an easy and jolly story? No. Did I die a little inside as I gave myself a pep talk each time I picked it up? Yes. I mean it felt part science textbook mixed with an epic, emotional tale filled with passion and devastating loss. What a combo. I had to work for every page, maybe every sentence, to appreciate its meaning in the grander scale of this book. I loved every POV character and I will miss them. That all being said, the book as I've described here is not going to be for everyone.

I received an e-arc from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"And if we could only see the world through a baby's eyes, gazing up with innocent wonder, we could watch the rivers in the sky. Mighty rivers that never cease to flow."

4.5 stars, rounded up for GR

This was such a beautiful book in the way that it showed the full gamut of human emotions from heartbreaking to hopeful to ecstatically happy. It's clearly meticulously researched and I loved the way that water was a character throughout the story. Because water unites us all, the story ranges across 3 storlines in different eras that are connected by the Thames and Tigris rivers. This structure was beautiful but also sometimes difficult to follow. It did drag for me in a few places where I struggled to understand how the threads would fit together, but Shafak is so good at pulling all the threads together for you eventually.

I'll definitely be picking up more books by this author.

A huge thank you to the author and the publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)

I didn't know what to expect going into this book. It opens on a scene from ancient Mesopotamia but though a storyline begins there, it's almost more of a philosophical look at water and the life it has. At this point, I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy the book if it stayed in this realm of philosophy. Nevertheless, I kept reading, and the story began to diverge into different perspectives and timelines. The author weaves this philosophical idea of water into each storyline, but the story definitely becomes a narrative.

With each storyline, I thought I had to keep them separate and organized based on the time period they are written about, but I soon noticed that there were little nuggets that connected all the timelines to one another. I began to excitedly look for these nuggets and was pleased to start noticing more and more connections between the storylines.

This is my second book by this author (the other was Three Daughters of Eve), and I can see that she is a master at weaving together stories through multiple timelines, bringing them together in the end. The thought and planning that goes into a story like this is incredible. I enjoyed this book more than I expected to at the outset, and pretty early in the book, I felt really invested in the various characters and their stories. Even about 85% of the way in, I wasn't sure how it was going to end and how the author was going to tie everything together, but she did!

Another outstanding tale from this brilliant author. As with her previous novels, this mixes the fantastical with historical truth. It took me longer than usual to finish reading this as I kept getting sucked down Google rabbit holes reading more about Gilgamesh and about George Smith, (the character of King Arthur of the sewers and slums was based on) . Fascinating reading and she so cleverly weaves the various stories and timelines together. A wonderful, easy 5* from me.
Thank you #Netgalley for this ARC