Elif Shafak | There are Rivers in the Sky
Tue 17 Sep 2024 | 7:30pm - 8:30pm
A new novel from internationally best-selling author and activist, Elif Shafak, is always a moment for celebration.
There Are Rivers in the Sky is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water. This rich, sweeping novel spans centuries, continents, and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains and waterdrops.
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.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought from the holy site of Lalish in Iraq.
In 2018 London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage.
In conversation with Robert Macfarlane
Venue: University Arms Hotel
Duration: 1 hour
Tickets available soon.
Author Biography
Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into fifty-five languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve 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, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Her previous novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize; longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as Blackwell’s Book of the Year. Her novel The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by the BBC as one of the 100 books that shaped our century. Shafak was awarded the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to ‘the renewal of the art of storytelling.’ She is an Honorary Patron of the Cambridge Literary Festival and in 2024 she delivered the second lecture in the ‘Room of One’s Own Lecture’ series at the Spring 2024 Festival.
Chair Biography
Robert Macfarlane is an author and academic. He regularly writes for publications including the Guardian and the Times. His writing often blurs ideas of genre and form and he regularly collaborates with artists, film-makers, photographers and musicians. His first book, Mountains of the Mind won the Guardian First Book Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. His other works include, The Old Ways, Landmarks as well as The Lost Words and The Lost Spells, children’s books of nature spells created in partnership with artist Jackie Morris. His most recent book was Underlands (2019). Robert is a Fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and is an Honorary Patron of the festival.
