Now streaming: A Wknd interview with Turkish-British author Elif Shafak

A drop of water. A fig tree. A dying brain: The Booker-shortlisted writer enjoys playing with narrative devices. Her new book is There Are Rivers in the Sky.

Elif Shafak doesn’t like it when writers preach to their readers. The job should entail asking questions, she says.

The Turkish-British author’s new book certainly poses some urgent ones.

There Are Rivers in the Sky follows four characters: An ancient Assyrian king; a baby born by the Thames in Victorian England; a Turkish girl growing up along the Tigris, amid the rise of ISIS, in 2014; and a London divorcee living in a houseboat on the Thames, in 2018.

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