2025 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award (longlist)
2025 Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize
2025 Indie Book Award for Fiction (shortlist)
2025 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction (finalist)
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.
*****
WINNER OF THE GORDON BOWKER PRIZE 2025
WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL GOOD HOUSEKEEPING GOOD BOOKS SPRING COLLECTION
FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION
‘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
Genre: Literary Fiction
*****
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.
*****
WINNER OF THE GORDON BOWKER PRIZE 2025
WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL GOOD HOUSEKEEPING GOOD BOOKS SPRING COLLECTION
FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION
‘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
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A great, sweeping, enthralling novel - Elif Shafak's narrative vision is as remarkable and astonishing as ever. Wonderful." - William Boyd
"Intricate, exhilarating storytelling that is a poetic reminder of how connected we are to one another and to the past." - Tracy Chevalier
"Flows like rivers from ancient Nineveh to present-day London with characters of the distant past as bright and vivid as those of today." - Philippa Gregory
"From its bravura opening through to its final pages, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a dazzling achievement. Shafak's imagination is a wonder: bold, capacious, beautiful and wise." - Katie Kitamura
"Walt Whitman said that a blade of grass contains the journey work of stars. William Blake wrote that we can see the world in a grain of sand. Toni Morrison said that we never shape the world, but the world shapes us. And so Shafak finds the world in a drop of water. She discovers the epic in the tiny, the global in the local, the love in the loss, the history in the momentary. An extraordinary novel, fresh and cleansing, like the rain bouncing off the metal roof of our lives." - Colum McCann
"Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature." - Ian McEwan
"Literature on a grand scale, mythic and timeless." - Nadifa Mohamed
"Elif Shafak approaches the world with grace, lyricism, and courage. Confronting societies riven by conflicts over gender, religion, sexuality, nationalism, memory, ideology, and more, Shafak wields the novel's artistic power to cut through complacency and orthodoxy with ruthlessness and beauty. Her words and works - compelling and provocative - leave us in a space of light, a clearing from where we can see this world anew." - Viet Thanh Nguyen
"An odyssey, an epic, a lament, and a tale of redemption, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a clarion call to honor the elemental forces that shape our memories, our histories, and our world. In short, a masterpiece." - Ruth Ozeki
"Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it." - Arundhati Roy
"Intricate, exhilarating storytelling that is a poetic reminder of how connected we are to one another and to the past." - Tracy Chevalier
"Flows like rivers from ancient Nineveh to present-day London with characters of the distant past as bright and vivid as those of today." - Philippa Gregory
"From its bravura opening through to its final pages, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a dazzling achievement. Shafak's imagination is a wonder: bold, capacious, beautiful and wise." - Katie Kitamura
"Walt Whitman said that a blade of grass contains the journey work of stars. William Blake wrote that we can see the world in a grain of sand. Toni Morrison said that we never shape the world, but the world shapes us. And so Shafak finds the world in a drop of water. She discovers the epic in the tiny, the global in the local, the love in the loss, the history in the momentary. An extraordinary novel, fresh and cleansing, like the rain bouncing off the metal roof of our lives." - Colum McCann
"Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature." - Ian McEwan
"Literature on a grand scale, mythic and timeless." - Nadifa Mohamed
"Elif Shafak approaches the world with grace, lyricism, and courage. Confronting societies riven by conflicts over gender, religion, sexuality, nationalism, memory, ideology, and more, Shafak wields the novel's artistic power to cut through complacency and orthodoxy with ruthlessness and beauty. Her words and works - compelling and provocative - leave us in a space of light, a clearing from where we can see this world anew." - Viet Thanh Nguyen
"An odyssey, an epic, a lament, and a tale of redemption, There Are Rivers in the Sky is a clarion call to honor the elemental forces that shape our memories, our histories, and our world. In short, a masterpiece." - Ruth Ozeki
"Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it." - Arundhati Roy
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Used availability for Elif Shafak's There are Rivers in the Sky