Staff Pick: There are rivers in the sky

A single drop of water permeates the lives of characters across centuries and countries in Elif Shafak's There are Rivers in the Sky (Penguin Random House, 2024), in a narrative bound by the limits of a human life and the immortality of water governed by an unceasing hydrologic cycle.

A raindrop falls in Ninevah as King Ashurbanipal inspects a tablet inscribed with the Epic of Gilgamesh, the cuneiform remnants of which later fascinate a Victorian printer's apprentice, born into poverty and squalor on the banks of the Thames. While a reclaimed and sanitised Thames later shelters the waterboat home of 20th century hydrologist, Zaleekah, a fragmented Yazidi community in Iraq finds themselves separated from the sacred springs of the Lalish valley as they flee Islamic State militants. 

Each location and time is richly evoked by Shafak, whose novels are reliably infused with rich descriptions of place, moving personal narratives and a consciousness of the political and social forces governing not just the fictional work, but also the process of its creation, as Turkish Shafak lives and writes in England after facing political and legal censure in her homeland. 

Recurring motifs abound in the novel, many of them tied to water in its many forms. Hydrologist Zaleekah is intrigued by the controversial theory of water memory, which proposes that water retains a memory of substances previously diluted in it, even after many cycles of absorption and dilution. The hybrid nature of the ancient Mesopotamian guardian sculptures, or lamassu, which anchor key features of the narrative, also reinforce the fluidity of historical ‘truths’ as they are diluted through the passage of time. Rivers themselves are redirected, buried, bled dry or forgotten, mirroring the fleeting historical gaze as it briefly lingers on the novel’s protagonists. 

For those looking to test the waters of historical fiction, There are Rivers in the Sky is a welcome immersion.  

Borrow the book at your local library.  Download the eBook from Borrowbox.

Eimear Hegarty, Senior Librarian, Pearse Street Library