Elif Shafak talks to David Isaac

Award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak talks about her latest work, There are Rivers in the Sky, a sweeping story of love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing set between the 19th century and modern times.

The story is centred around three characters living on the banks of the Thames and the Tigris and how their lives are all touched by Gilgamesh, an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late second millennium BC.

‘It will make you think, cry, rage – and hope. It is Elif Shafak at her best’  New Statesman

‘A brilliant, unforgettable novel, which raises big ideas of ‘who owns the past’ with nuance and complexity. Elif Shafak ties together diverse time periods and places in a way that seems both natural and wonderfully unexpected. Mary Beard

Shafak has published 21 books, including 13 novels, which have been translated into 58 languages. Her previous novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was shortlisted for the Costa Award, British Book Awards, RSL Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize for Fiction. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and RSL Ondaatje Prize and was Blackwell’s Book of the Year. Shafak has taught at various universities in Turkey, the US and UK and is an honorary fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. She holds the medal of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and was chosen by Politico as one of the 12 people “who will give you a much-needed lift of the heart”.

The Provost of Worcester lecture is given at the invitation of the Provost of Worcester David Isaac, a former chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission of Great Britain and of Stonewall. Previous lectures have been given by Sir Chris Bryant, Professor Peter Frankopan, Ed Miliband, Sir Anthony Sher, Philippe Sands and Sir Ian McKellen.