There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak - 5 stars (BWF)

[Joy D]

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak - 5* - My Review

Beautifully told story of the connections between humans and nature across history. Water is the key natural element that ties three stories together, including events that take place near two rivers – the Thames and the Tigris. The tradition of storytelling and Legend of Gilgamesh are also common threads.

There are three main protagonists: Arthur, Narin, and Zaleekhah. Arthur is born in poverty beside a polluted Thames River in the 19th century. Though he is poor, he possesses a brilliant intellect, and is eventually able to escape the slums. He has a gift for translating cuneiform and becomes obsessed with recovering missing lines from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Narin is a Yazidi girl living in Turkey in the 2000s. She is part of a Kurdish sect, whose traditions and history are an integral part of the storyline. Narin’s mother is deceased and her father travels, so her grandmother is her primary caregiver. Narin is gradually losing her sense of hearing, and her grandmother wishes to get her to a distant sacred ground. This journey puts her into a zone of conflict, where people of their religion are persecuted. In present-day, Zaleekhah is hydrologist who rents a houseboat on the Thames after a failed marriage. After Zaleekhah’s parents died in a flash flood, her uncle and his family took her in. Though she has been in a caring environment, her uncle still wants to control her life.

The story is complex and requires the reader’s close attention. It is well-researched, engaging, and includes historical details that will not be familiar to many readers. I enjoyed learning the historical information, which I supplemented by doing a bit of web research. The characters are wonderfully developed. Shafak braids the three storylines together such that the characters’ destinies come together in a dramatic conclusion. In each of the three situations, a single drop of water provides continuity throughout history. I think it could have used a bit more editing, but this seems like a quibble in such an impressive work. Shafak is one of my favorite authors, and this latest effort is another outstanding example of her literary skills.

PBT September BWF Extra S - fits letter not tag