There Are Rivers in the Sky

In her new novel, Turkish-British Booker Prize finalist Shafak (The Island of Missing Trees) uses a single raindrop to link together four characters, a thousand years, and several countries. The raindrop first lands on the head of Ashurbanipal, the ruthless Assyrian king who owns the extensive library that includes the epic poem Gilgamesh. In Victorian London, the raindrop, now a snowflake, falls on Arthur, the son of an impoverished river scavenger. Arthur, who is based on real-life Assyriologist George Smith, eventually decodes the clay tablets containing Gilgamesh. In modern-day Turkey, the raindrop, collected as rainwater, spills on Narin, a young Yazidi girl who lives on the banks of the Tigris, where she contends with her gradual hearing loss and religious persecution. In the form of a teardrop, the raindrop then settles upon Zaleekhah, a hydrologist who recently left her husband and lives on a houseboat in contemporary London. Shafak connects these characters through their love of Gilgamesh, Assyrian culture, archeology, and rivers.