Elif Shafak's "Rivers of Heaven": An Aquatic Epic Through the Centuries

Every novel by Elif Shafak invites us on a journey through time, into the imagination, into the rites and traditions of the Middle East, into the chaos of the world and the upheavals of love and chance. Each time, this storyteller manages to surprise us by intertwining destinies that were never destined to cross paths and by deciphering the planet's ills in the manner of a fable. A secular Muslim and bisexual feminist, born somewhat by chance in France to Turkish parents, raised in Turkey and exiled in London, Elif Shafak is rich in different cultures and this richness irrigates her novels like the rivers of her latest book which takes us from the dark and miserable banks of the Thames in 1840 to the murderous banks of the Tigris then to the whole of Mesopotamia in 2014, and finally to the heart of the London of the rich exiles of 2018. An epic with a breathtaking romantic breath from which we emerge fulfilled as this reading has taken us far from everyday contingencies.

In her previous novel, The Island of Vanishing Trees (2022), the central character was a fig tree, this time the heroes are rivers, Elif Shafak has a relat