There Are Rivers in the Sky Summary: A Water-Bound Epic of Memory and Survival
TL;DR
Elif Shafak’s There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three interwoven stories across ancient Nineveh, Victorian London, and modern Iraq.
A single raindrop carries the memory of water through time, linking a ruthless Assyrian king, a poor London boy with an extraordinary memory, and a young Yazidi girl caught in genocide.
- The novel’s central symbol is water as a witness to human cruelty, survival, and storytelling.
- Key themes include displacement, cultural erasure, class injustice, and the persistence of ancient stories.
- All three storylines converge around the Epic of Gilgamesh and a small blue lapis lazuli tablet.
Characters in This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Ashurbanipal | Last great King of Assyria who built a vast library and ruled with cruelty. |
| Arthur Smyth | Victorian working-class genius with an extraordinary memory who deciphers the Flood Tablet of the Gilgamesh epic. |
| Narin | Young Yazidi girl losing her hearing who survives the 2014 genocide and is rescued from traffickers. |
| Zaleekhah Clarke | Modern hydrologist in London who rescues Narin and confronts her family’s dark secrets. |
| Besma | Narin’s grandmother and water-dowser who preserves Yazidi oral traditions. |
| Nen (Brennen) | Tattoo artist and Assyriology enthusiast who becomes Zaleekhah’s partner and ally. |
| Leila | Yazidi seer in Arthur’s time who predicts massacres and with whom Arthur falls in love. |
| Charles Dickens | Victorian author who recognizes Arthur’s talent and supports his scholarly ambitions. |
| Uncle Malek | Zaleekhah’s wealthy uncle who arranges an illegal organ trafficking plot to save his granddaughter. |
| Mr. Bradbury | Arthur’s kind publisher and mentor who introduces him to the world of books. |
| Mahmoud | Arthur’s loyal Arab guide who stays with him until his death. |
| Salma | Yazidi captive who protects Narin while they are enslaved by ISIS. |
There Are Rivers in the Sky Summary: The Full Story
Spoiler warning: This section recounts the entire plot, including the ending.
The Ancient World: The Library of Nineveh
The story begins in the 640s BCE in Nineveh. King Ashurbanipal rules the Assyrian Empire as both a scholar and a conqueror.
He has built a massive library of clay tablets. Among them is a secret lapis lazuli tablet inscribed with the Epic of Gilgamesh and dedicated to the forgotten goddess Nisaba.
During a storm, a single raindrop falls onto the king’s scalp. It lands at the exact moment he orders the fiery execution of a former mentor for treason.
That raindrop evaporates but later returns to earth, carrying what the novel calls the memory of water. This same drop reappears across time in different forms.
The Victorian Era: Arthur Smyth’s Journey
In 1840, the raindrop falls as a snowflake into the mouth of newborn Arthur Smyth on the muddy banks of the Thames in London. Arthur is born into extreme poverty among “toshers” who scavenge the sewers and river sludge.
He has an eidetic memory that lets him recall every sensory detail of his life. Despite his father’s brutality, Arthur’s intelligence leads him from a ragged school to an apprenticeship at the printing house of Charles Dickens.
Arthur becomes obsessed with the giant lamassu statues at the British Museum. He teaches himself to read cuneiform and eventually deciphers the Flood Tablet, proving the biblical story of Noah’s Ark has older Mesopotamian roots.
That discovery makes him a reluctant celebrity. He travels to the ruins of Nineveh to find missing lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In Mesopotamia, Arthur falls in love with Leila, a Yazidi seer who predicts a future massacre of her people. Arthur finds the missing verses, but Leila’s village is destroyed. He dies of dysentery in 1876 in a mud hut by the Tigris. His blue lapis lazuli tablet is stolen.
Read Also: Before Your Memory Fades Summary – Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The 21st Century: Narin and Zaleekhah
In 2014, nine-year-old Narin, a Yazidi girl in southeast Turkey, is losing her hearing. Her grandmother Besma, a water-dowser, wants to take her to the holy Valley of Lalish in Iraq for baptism before the ancestral lands are flooded by a dam.
Their pilgrimage turns into a nightmare when ISIS launches a genocide against the Yazidis. Narin’s father is shot, and Besma is presumed killed. Narin is captured and sold into sexual slavery in Mosul.
While captive, Narin discovers that a commander possesses the ancient blue lapis lazuli tablet stolen from Arthur Smyth. She uses the tablet as a bargaining chip to protect fellow captives, though she is beaten for it.
In 2018, Zaleekhah Clarke, a hydrologist living on a houseboat in London, is struggling with depression and rootlessness. Her wealthy Uncle Malek raised her after her parents died in a flash flood in Turkey.
Zaleekhah meets Nen, a tattoo artist who specializes in cuneiform. Nen challenges Zaleekhah’s gratitude toward her uncle.
Zaleekhah discovers that her uncle and aunt have arranged to save their granddaughter’s life by illegally purchasing a kidney from a captured Yazidi girl, who is Narin. Horrified, Zaleekhah intervenes and, with Nen’s help, rescues Narin from the traffickers.
The Ending: The River Returns
The book concludes with Zaleekhah and Nen taking Narin back to her ancestral home in Castrum Kefa just as the floodgates of the dam are opened. The town is submerged, but the three women stand together in the ancient cemetery.
Narin visits the grave of “King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums,” paying respect to the man whose life was bound to hers through the blue tablet and the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The raindrop that once fell on Ashurbanipal evaporates from the Tigris, travels across the world, and falls as a snowflake on a newborn in London.
The cycle continues, reinforcing the idea that water remembers and human stories are interconnected through the rivers of the sky.
Elif Shafak: A Writer Between East and West
Elif Shafak is a British-Turkish novelist, essayist, and political scientist. She writes in both English and Turkish and is known for novels that move between historical and contemporary settings.
Her works often focus on displacement, memory, women’s voices, and the cultural tensions between East and West. She has published numerous bestselling novels, including The Forty Rules of Love and The Bastard of Istanbul.
For more of her novel summaries, visit the Elif Shafak book summaries on URSummary.
The Novel’s Recurring Ideas
The following table lists the book’s central themes and how they appear within the story.
| Theme | How the book presents it |
|---|---|
| The Memory of Water | A single raindrop reappears in different forms across three timelines, carrying the memory of human events. |
| The Persistence of Storytelling | The Epic of Gilgamesh survives from ancient Nineveh through Arthur’s decipherment to the modern storyline. |
| Displacement and Exile | Arthur leaves London for Mesopotamia, Narin is forced from her homeland, and Zaleekhah feels rootless in London. |
| Genocide and Cultural Erasure | The 2014 ISIS attacks on the Yazidis and the flooding of Hasankeyf destroy people and ancient heritage. |
| Class Injustice and Poverty | Arthur’s early life as a sewer scavenger contrasts with the wealth of Charles Dickens’s world and the Assyrian court. |
| The Cyclic Nature of Time | The ending returns to a newborn in London, showing that water and human stories repeat across centuries. |
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Frequently Asked Questions
How does There Are Rivers in the Sky end?
The novel ends with the Ilisu Dam flooding Hasankeyf and Arthur’s grave, while Zaleekhah, Nen, and Narin stand together in the cemetery. The same raindrop that began the story later falls as a snowflake on a newborn in London, continuing the cycle.
What is the significance of the raindrop in There Are Rivers in the Sky?
The raindrop serves as the novel’s connecting symbol, carrying the memory of water across ancient Nineveh, Victorian London, and modern Iraq. It links the three timelines and reinforces the idea that water remembers human events.
Is There Are Rivers in the Sky based on true historical events?
The novel incorporates real historical contexts, including Ashurbanipal’s library, the Victorian decipherment of the Flood Tablet, and the 2014 Yazidi genocide. The characters and the specific raindrop journey are fictional.
Who is Arthur Smyth in There Are Rivers in the Sky?
Arthur Smyth is a Victorian working-class boy with an eidetic memory who rises from poverty to decipher the Flood Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh. He later travels to Nineveh, falls in love with Leila, and dies by the Tigris in 1876.
Does There Are Rivers in the Sky have a happy ending?
The ending is mixed. Narin is rescued and the three women survive, but Hasankeyf and Arthur’s grave are submerged. The novel closes on a note of survival and the ongoing cycle of water rather than a conventional happy resolution.
Read Also: Martyr! Book Summary: A Quest for Meaning & Memory
Similar Books to Explore
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak — Shares lyrical prose and the theme of historical memory carried through nature, in this case a tree instead of water.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr — A multi-timeline epic centered on the survival of an ancient text across centuries and continents.
The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel — Explores the power of books and records to preserve identity during genocide and displacement.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi — A sweeping generational saga tracing a family across continents and history.
Memories of Water by Emmi Itäranta — A speculative fiction novel focused on water scarcity and its sacredness in a future world.
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams — Examines the historical intersection of language, class, and voices excluded from the official archive.
