“ When history takes a darker turn, it always starts with the omission of words .” Elif Shafak
In Victorian London, an extraordinary child is born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames. When his brilliant memory earns him a spot as an apprentice at a printing press, the world opens up far beyond the slums and across the seas. In 2014 in Turkey, Narin, a Yazidi girl living by the River Tigris, waits to be baptized. The ceremony is cruelly interrupted, and soon she and her grandmother must journey across war-torn lands in the hope of reaching the sacred valley of their people. In 2018 in London, broken-hearted Zaleekhah moves to a houseboat on the Thames to escape the wreckage of her marriage - until an unexpected connection to her homeland changes everything.
Elif Shafak is this award-winning British Turkish novelist whose work has been translated into fifty-eight languages. The Island of Missing Trees was a finalist for the Costa Award, British Book Awards, RSL Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize for Fiction and was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. 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. The Architect’s Apprentice was chosen for The Queen’s Reading Room. There are Rivers in the Sky won the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award 2025 and was a finalist for the Prix Fémina Étranger and The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
In conversation with broadcaster and book columnist, Rick O’Shea.