In this episode of Julia’s Book Club, Julia and co-host Sarah Holland-Batt delve into the latest novel by best-selling author, Elif Shafak. There are Rivers in the Sky charts the story of three characters from across history brought together by two great rivers, with one epic poem flowing through the story. Spanning centuries and continents, the novel follows a single drop of water from the Tigris to the Thames, from antiquity to the 19th century to the modern day.
While exploring the rich histories laid out in the novel, Julia and Sarah also consider its central question – how does history get told, and who gets to tell it? They also reflect on Shafak's exploration of global inequalities across the novel – from the poverty of a class-divided Victorian London, to the far more recent persecution of the Yazidi people (and especially the women) in war-ravaged Iraq, to the impacts of climate change on the fragile ecosystems of rivers like the Tigris and the Thames.
If the name Elif Shafak sounds familiar, that's because we were lucky enough to have her join us on the podcast back in August. If you've not heard it yet, you can catch up with that interview here, or find it wherever you're listening to this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/elif-shafak-on-the-power-of-storytelling/id1466658814?i=1000666169272.
If you'd like to learn more about Gilgamesh, the epic poem that plays a central role in this novel, and the real-life figure of George Smith who inspired the character Arthur Smyth, you can read Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic by Sophus Helle.
There are Rivers in the Sky is published by Penguin Australia and is available at all good bookstores.
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