Elif Shafak
Wednesday 22nd October 2025
In conversation with Kent House Series' Literary Director, Stewart Collins, Elif discusses her sweeping novel set between the 19th century and modern times. It's about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters that live on the banks of the River Thames and River Tigris - their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh.
Interviewer:
Stewart Collins
Stewart Collins is the Literary Director of the Kent House Series. As well as having written for the stage and national publications, Stewart has been the artistic director of numerous performance and literary festivals and founder of both Stoke on Trent and Petworth Literary Festivals.
As an interviewer he has chaired over a hundred literary conversations, notably with Clare Balding, David Suchet, Rev Richard Coles, Hugh Bonneville, Michael Morpurgo, Michael Palin, Nick Hornby, Victoria Hislop and William Boyd.
There Are Rivers In The Sky
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.
In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. Arthur’s only chance of escaping poverty is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, Arthur’s world opens up far beyond the slums, with one book soon sending him across the seas: Nineveh and Its Remains.
In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptised with water brought from the holy site of Lalish in Iraq. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people.
In 2018 London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah, a hydrologist, moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage. Zaleekhah foresees a life drained of all love and meaning – until an unexpected connection to her homeland changes everything.