Viking snaps up 'masterful' new novel from Shafak in two-book deal

Viking has signed a two-book deal with Elif Shafak for There Are Rivers In The Sky, a "rich, sweeping" tale, and an as yet untitled novel.

Publisher Isabel Wall acquired UK and Commonwealth rights following an exclusive submission from Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown. John Freeman at Knopf, Penguin Random House US, acquired North American rights to both titles. There Are Rivers In The Sky will be published in hardback, audiobook and e-book on 8th August 2024.

"Elif’s readership around the world has grown hugely and her recent bestselling The Island of Missing Trees has sold over 700,000 copies so far," said Geller. "Her new novel is her best yet – historical, lyrical, political, heart-breaking."

Set between the 19th century and contemporary times, There Are Rivers In The Sky follows three "enchanting" characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris, "their lives all curiously touched" by the Mesopotamian epic poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh. It is a novel about love, loss, memory, erasure, hurt and healing.

Shafak has written 19 books including 12 novels. Her last novel, The Island of Missing Trees, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022 and the Pageturner category at the British Book Awards 2022.

Shafak commented: "As a storyteller, I am drawn as much to the tales that aren’t told as to those that are. To the forgotten, to the silenced. I am very excited to share There Are Rivers in the Sky with readers and fiction lovers. I truly hope that this novel will touch people’s hearts the way it touched mine in the dreaming and writing of it."

Wall added: "There Are Rivers In The Sky is a masterful work of literature about three characters living in extraordinary times, and the water that stretches across centuries and continents to unite them; about the stories we inherit, and how they shape our lives.

"It has all the pleasures that readers have comes to associate with Elif Shafak’s unique body of work, and while it has become a cliché to say a novelist is operating at the height of their powers, in this case, it could not be more true."