This is the story of one lost poem, two great rivers, and three remarkable lives – all connected by a single drop of water. 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 ten-year-old Yazidi girl, waits to be baptised in the waters of the River Tigris.The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon Narin and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of finding 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.A dazzling feat of storytelling from one of the greatest writers of our time, Elif Shafak’s There are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel that spans centuries, continents and cultures, entwined by rivers, rains, and waterdrops:‘Water remembers. It is humans who forget.’

The international bestseller from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World, The Forty Rules of Love is part of our Penguin Essentials series which spotlights the very best of our modern classics*One of the BBC''s ''100 Novels That Shaped the World''*"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven''t loved enough..."Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella''s life - an emptiness once filled by love.So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work.It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . .''The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself'' The Times''Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent'' Daily Telegraph*** ELIF SHAFAK''S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***

Magický príbeh o spolupatričnosti a identite, o láske a traume, o sile prírody a nových začiatkoch. Dvaja cyperskí tínedžeri – Kostas, Grék a kresťan, a Defne, Turkyňa a moslimka – sa spoznajú v taverne na ostrove, ktorý obaja považujú za svoj domov. V čarokrásnom prostredí exotických rastlín a pod konármi figovníka prepadnú zakázanej láske. Strom je nemým svedkom ich šťastných stretnutí, svedkom vojny, zničenia mesta aj svedkom osudu zaľúbencov. Figovník rastie takisto v záhrade londýnskeho domu, kde o desiatky rokov neskôr žije Ada Kazantzakisová. Ten strom je jediné spojenie s ostrovom, ktorý nikdy nenavštívila, jediné spojenie s boľavou rodinnou históriou a jej identitou, ktorú sa pokúša odhaliť, aby našla svoje miesto na svete.

It is 1974 on the island of Cyprus. Two teenagers, from opposite sides of a divided land, meet at a tavern in the city they both call home. The tavern is the only place that Kostas, who is Greek and Christian, and Defne, who is Turkish and Muslim, can meet, in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic, chilli peppers and wild herbs. This is where one can find the best food in town, the best music, the best wine. But there is something else to the place: it makes one forget, even if for just a few hours, the world outside and its immoderate sorrows. In the centre of the tavern, growing through a cavity in the roof, is a fig tree. This tree will witness their hushed, happy meetings, their silent, surreptitious departures; and the tree will be there when the war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to rubble, when the teenagers vanish and break apart. Decades later in north London, sixteen-year-old Ada Kazantzakis has never visited the island where her parents were born. Desperate for answers, she seeks to untangle years of secrets, separation and silence. The only connection she has to the land of her ancestors is a Ficus Carica growing in the back garden of their home. In The Island of Missing Trees, prizewinning author Elif Shafak brings us a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature, and, finally, renewal.

Co když v okamžiku smrti lidská mysl ještě několik převzácných minut pracuje? Přesně řečeno, deset minut třicet osm vteřin… Každá posmrtná minuta Leile přináší intenzivní smyslovou vzpomínku: chuť kořeněného guláše z kozy, kterou její otec obětoval na oslavu narození dlouho očekávaného syna; chuť směsi cukru s citronem, jíž si ženy depilují nohy, zatímco muži navštěvují mešitu; vůni kávy s kardamomem, kterou Leila pije s pohledným studentem v bordelu, kde je zaměstnaná. A všechny tyto vzpomínky jí také připomínají věrné přátele, s nimiž se sblížila v klíčových momentech svého života – přátele, kteří se ji nyní zoufale snaží najít…

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019 'Expect vibrant, vivid and eye-opening descriptions of Middle Eastern life propelled by a tender storyline, all in Shafak's haunting, beautiful and considered prose' Vanity Fair'Incredibly sensuous and poetic and evocative' Pandora Sykes'Richly uplifting... truly beautiful writing' Nicola Sturgeon'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore...'For Leila, each minute after her death recalls a sensuous memory: spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the birth of a yearned-for son; bubbling vats of lemon and sugar to wax women's legs while men are at prayer; the cardamom coffee she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each fading memory brings back the friends she made in her bittersweet life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her . . .'Simply magnificent, a truly captivating work of immense power and beauty, on the essence of life and its end' Philippe Sands'Elif Shafak brings into the written realm what so many others want to leave outside. Spend more than ten minutes and 38 seconds in this world of the estranged. Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann 'Elif Shafak's extraordinary 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World is a work of brutal beauty and consummate tenderness' Simon Schama'A rich, sensual novel... This is a novel that gives voice to the invisible, the untouchable, the abused and the damaged, weaving their painful songs into a thing of beauty.' Financial Times'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi 'Haunting, moving, beautifully written. A masterpiece' Peter Frankopan 'Extraordinary' Guardian'Life-affirming' Stylist*Elif Shafak's latest novel The Island of Missing Trees is available now*

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.

One rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I need to have an abortion', she announces. She is nineteen years old and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life. Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul.

Sixteenth century Istanbul: a stowaway arrives in the city bearing an extraordinary gift for the Sultan. The boy is utterly alone in a foreign land, with no worldly possessions to his name except Chota, a rare white elephant destined for the palace menagerie.

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