There are Rivers in the Sky - Elif Shafak

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.

'A storm is approaching Nineveh, the sky swollen with impending rain. One of the clouds approaching the world's largest and wealthiest city, built on the banks of the river Tigris, is bigger and darker than the others-and more impatient. It floats suspended above a majestic building adorned with marble columns, pillared porticos and monumental statues. This is the North Palace, where the king resides in all his might and glory. The cloud casts a shadow over the imperial residence. For unlike humans, water has no regard for social status or royal titles.

Dangling from the edge of the cloud is a single drop of rain - no bigger than a bean and lighter than a chickpea. For a while it quivers precariously - small, spherical and scared. How frightening it is to observe the earth open down below like a lonely lotus flower.

Remember that raindrop, inconsequential though it may be compared to the magnitude of the universe. Inside, it holds a miniature world, a story of its own...'

''There are Rivers in the Sky is an enchanting epic, told through the vantage of single raindrop, where the sacred mysteries of water, science, and poetry collide' - Safiya Sinclair

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.

480 pages

Paperback