An Evening With Elif Shafak | How To Academy

National Tour

24th September - 1st October

An Evening With Elif Shafak

There Are Rivers in the Sky

The internationally bestselling, deeply beloved author and activist joins us to share the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water.

‘Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won’t regret it.’ – Arundhati Roy

Renowned not only in her native Turkey and her adopted home of Britain, but across the globe, Elif Shafak is an author whose novels succeed where so many others fail: enchanting the spirit and the senses, stirring the heart, and making us think deeply about the great themes of human life, all at the same time.

Following the Sunday Times bestseller The Island of Missing Trees and the Booker-listed 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World comes There Are Rivers in the Sky: a sweeping story that spans centuries, continents, and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains, and waterdrops.

In the ruins of Nineveh, that ancient city of Mesopotamia, there lies hidden in the sand fragments of a long-forgotten poem, 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.

‘Water remembers. It is humans who forget.’

Don’t miss this chance to join one of the most widely celebrated and accomplished authors of our time.

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Elif Shafak

Award-Winning British Turkish Novelist

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into fifty-five languages. The author of nineteen books, twelve of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak’s latest novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was a top ten Sunday Times bestseller, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Her previous novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize; longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award; and chosen as Blackwell’s Book of the Year. Her novel The Forty Rules of Love was chosen by the BBC as one of the 100 books that shaped our century. Shafak was awarded the Halldór Laxness International Literature Prize for her contribution to ‘the renewal of the art of storytelling.’

Paul van Zyl

Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer, The Conduit Club

Co-Founder of The Conduit and Chief Creative Officer, Paul is a winner of the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

He served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission and co-founded the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), an international human rights organisation based in New York City.

Hannah MacInnes

Presenter, Podcaster and Host of How To Academy’s live programmes.

Hannah MacInnes is a broadcaster and journalist. Alongside hosting How To Academy’s live programmes and podcast, she presents a cultural show on Times Radio and interviews on-stage at a number of other major literary events. She is the host of The Klosters Forum Podcast series and has written for the Radio Times, the Evening Standard and TLS. Before going freelance she worked for 8 years at BBC Newsnight, as Planning Editor and as a Producer / Filmmaker.