“But remember in Ancient Greece rivers were sacred. Humans didn’t always treat water like this.”
One lost poem, two rivers and three people connected by a single drop of water are the heart and soul of MLF audience favourite Elif Shafak’s superb new novel There Are Rivers in the Sky. In Victorian England, Arthur is born by the River Thames and raised in the slums until his brilliant memory and love of knowledge lead him to foreign lands. In 2014 by the River Tigris in Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl travels to Iraq to be baptised with holy water. In 2018 in London, Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, escapes the wreckage of her marriage in a houseboat on the Thames, until an unexpected connection with her homeland changes everything.
Elif is a bestselling Turkish-British writer and broadcaster whose books have been translated into 57 languages. She is the author of 20 books including 13 novels. Her last novel The Island of Missing Trees was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her previous novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by the BBC as one of the 100 books that shaped our century. Elif was awarded the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to ‘the renewal of the art of storytelling.’ Her Substack is called Unmapped Storylands.
Presented by Manchester Literature Festival. View the full 2024 Festival programme here.