Description

By (author) Shafak Elif

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.

*****

FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION
WINNER OF THE GORDON BOWKER PRIZE 2025
WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL GOOD HOUSEKEEPING GOOD BOOKS SPRING COLLECTION

‘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

*** PRE-ORDER ELIF SHAFAK”S NEW NOVEL IN ONE BRIEF MOMENT ALL ETERNITY
NOW ***

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

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Gloriously expansive and intellectually rich… a magnificent achievement

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Richly evocative. A fascinating stream of storytelling.

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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.

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

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Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature

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Shafak makes a new home for us in words

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A writer of important, beautiful, painful, truthful novels

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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.

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Bright, vivid and timeless like rivers.

Biographical note:
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-seven languages. The author of twenty books, fourteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak”s previous novel, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, was the UK’s bestselling literary hardback novel of 2025, selling over 500,000 copies. Her work has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, amongst others, and she is currently nominated for ‘Author of the Year’ at the British Book Awards. Elif Shafak was appointed President of the Royal Society of Literature in 2025. Her books have sold several million copies worldwide.