There Are Rivers in the Sky

I borrowed this from a book club friend and I've taken my time meandering through it (did you know the word 'meander' derives from the name of a river?) Written by acclaimed Turkish-British author Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky weaves together a complex collection of themes: ancient Ninevah; the Yazidi people, persecuted as 'devil worshippers'; the translation of cuneiform text in the nineteenth century; heartbreak in contemporary London; the study of water; floods and drought; climate change; poetry.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is constructed like a beautifully made mosaic, each piece precisely placed and designed to highlight or contrast with the rest. It definitely made me think of water in a different way, and it felt very timely to be reading a book set partly in the Middle East, during the events in Syria and Lebanon. It's a part of the world that I'm shamefully ignorant and confused about, but both this book and Rory Stewart's The Places Between have begun to place images in my mind that might help to anchor the geography and history in my brain.

There are three main strands to the narrative, two set in the 2010s and one in the mid-nineteenth century, but all three end up twining together in a sad but satisfying way. It was difficult to read about the treatment of the Yazidi under ISIS, and a story I knew nothing about, and it's heart breaking to reflect that we humans still seem incapable of living together in peace.