Elif Shafak: There are Rivers in the Sky

After immersing myself in a variety of literature from the region, and after reading nine of her books, singing praises at the time I read them, then ultimately realizing that I prefer her two nonfiction works to the seven novels, it eventually felt like I had outgrown Elif Shafak.

Nawal el Saadawi, Sema Kaygusuz, Farnoosh Moshiri, Dunya Mikhail, Adania Shibli, and other lesser known women authors that I encountered through this reading project, made Shafak’s fiction feel diluted and elementary…

…until I learned that There are Rivers in the Sky involves Mesopotamia, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and one of the books that fueled my obsession with the Fertile Crescent, Sir Austen Henry Layard’s Nineveh and its Remains.

Needless to say, I purchased the e-edition of There are Rivers in the Sky on the day it launched, and veered away from this month’s plan to read Women in Translation. Apparently, Shafak still manages to lure me with her chosen topics and setting. 

And I’m glad I read it. I’m glad I did not deceive myself into believing that my literary taste has become too sophisticated for Elif Shafak. Because after all, maybe she does not water it down. Maybe what she does is a deliberate simplification, so that her books become stepping stones to forgotten stories, accessible pathways to pressing matters that we don’t even stop to think about, and springboards that launch readers into deeper inquiry about issues that are not discussed enough.

In There are Rivers in the Sky, Shafak still transcends her pretty book covers and continues to be an activist for those who do not have a voice — in this case, buried history, looted artifacts, dying rivers, and the dwindling Yazidis and the continual decimation of their people and their stories. 

Reading this has taught me many lessons, and it is not without its beautiful lines: “…the world is changing faster than minds can grasp… all these smartly turned out people with their polished boots and affected airs, you look at them and you think they must know everything, educated and cultured as they are, but… when times are confusing, everybody is a little lost. No one is inwardly confident as they present to be. Hence the reason we must read… books… provide us with light amidst the fog.”