Well I want to start by saying welcome. Welcome  to this fantastic location. The audience has got  

the best of it because you're looking at these  great Lamassus sculptures and I am looking at  

the crouching Venus back there who's not quite  as impressive I have to say I'm Mary Beard and  

I am a trustee of the British Museum and that is  why I have had the real good luck to be able to  

get this gig talking to Elif who is a leading  light of contemporary fiction and in her new  

book which you all I hope have a copy for there a  rivers in the sky she gives more than a cameo role  

to the Museum and to the Assyrian collection and  to the original home of the Assyrian sculptures  

so there is no better place whatsoever to be  discussed in the book than right here and we  

feel very very privileged Just for the bit  of housekeeping which I'll do to begin with  

we're going to talk for about 40 minutes and  then there'll be about 20 minutes discussion  

and then there's more to consume just back to  the right so we hope that you'll stay and enjoy  

I should also because I mustn't forget this at  the end thank the publishers Viking for helping  

with this and all the staff of the British Museum  including Sebastien Rey who knows much more about  

Assyrian sculptures I would guess than anybody  else in the room had really helped us get this  

together and we're absolutely delighted to  be here in what I hope will be the first of  

many such pop-up events here talking about  things that resonate with the BM collection  

so it's great and Elif was the catalyst  to this and the excuse so it's wonderful  

I want to start though by asking if to as it were  get us in the groove because this novel is what  

I would now call classic Shafak that there are  three main interwoven story lines that go across  

time and place and in order that those who haven't  yet read it but you'll be able to take it home and  

read it tonight I thought it would be helpful if  we just got what those three storylines are and  

then we can have a more general discussion but  El the kind of protagonist of the BM storyline  

is a guy in your book that you call Arthur Smyths  who goes right through the book can you tell us a  

little bit about him first of all thank you thank  you so much I am to be honest not only excited  

a little bit overwhelmed this place has so much  soul so much energy to be here to do this event  

together to be on the stage with the great Mary  Beard it's just remarkable and I'm very grateful  

so thank you so much for making this happen and I  know we will be discussing some difficult issues  

as well but I really think this is the right place  to have these discussions and literature is also  

the right space for that so that we can hold more  nuanced conversations so I'm really really looking  

forward to this as you kindly mentioned there are  three characters in this book or maybe I can say  

this is the story of three characters two rivers  and one ancient poem so 3 2 1 and everything in  

this book is connected via a tiny drop of water  so basically I think I wanted to know or see if  

I could build an entire novel on a single droplet  something that is seemingly insignificant but of  

course is not you know we cannot take water for  granted I come from the Middle East and as we're  

speaking our rivers are drying and our rivers are  dying of the most ten water stressed nations in  

the world seven are in the Middle East and in  North Africa and this has massive consequences  

of course for everyone but particularly for women  because women are water carriers they bring water  

to their communities when there's no water  the distance that a woman has to walk in order  

to fetch water increases unfortunately increasing  the possibility of gender violence on the way or  

on the way back so all these issues are connected  and I thought you know water was perhaps a good  

story to see how connected we are and the  reason why I mentioned this is because the  

three characters in the book are connected as  if in a water molecule so they're my H2O there  

are the two hydrogen molecules we will come  to those characters and there's oxygen at the  

center which is Arthur yes just tell us a little  bit about Arthur because Arthur is Loosely based  

on a real character George Smith who worked in the  British Museum and was revolutionary in actually  

decoding the epic of Gilgamesh and he's an unsung  hero of world literature actually and you start  

with Arthur at the very beginning you have to  think we'll sometimes say Arthur and sometimes  

say George yes same Elif starts with Arthur at the  very beginning of his life yes so I call him in  

the book King Arthur of the sewers and the slums  and there's a reason why he has given this unusual  

name he's born in the slum tenements of Chelsea  at the time by the river he's a river's child  

and in the story he also dies by the river and  basically as Mary pointed out I loosely based  

this character on an actual historical figure who  was George Smith and if I may add this I peered Dr  

Sebastien Rey with so many questions when I was  writing this book and he always kindly answered  

my my questions George Smith is a fascinating  character maybe it's an unusual thing for an  

author to say this but I really really fell in  love with this character I love the character  

and I maybe I wanted more people to know about  him I think if he had been born today we're  

talking about a boy who was born into poverty he  has never been given a proper education and he  

has an amazing visual memory which if you were  alive today we would probably respect we might  

have recognized the divergence of his mind the  beauty of his mind and this remarkable visual  

memory that he had with very little education the  actual George Smith he comes to the British Museum  

during his break time you know just lunchtime  lunch break and he just keeps looking at these  

shattered cuneiform tablets if I may open a  parenthesis very quickly now these cuneiform  

tablets clay tablets it's it's a remarkable story  so we go thousands of years back remember when I  

talked about this drop of water at the beginning  thousands of years back in the beginning of the  

book it falls on the head of a mighty king King  Ashurbanipal who changed the course of history  

because he had this very important library and  in that library we're talking about thousands of  

cuneiform tablets among those tablets is the story  of Epic of Gilgamesh now the actual George Smith  

in Victorian era is the person who discovers the  Epic of Gilgamesh and who decodes in particular  

the flood tablet he falls in love with the poem  and in order to find the missing lines in the poem  

he comes to the region twice he loses his life  there and today he's buried between Syria and  

Turkey and there's one thing I just want to add at  this point there are many things which stimulate  

young Arthur in your book but one of those is  coming across because his employer shows it to  

him coming across lead's 1849 book Nineveh and  its remains and it combined with the actual the  

tablets the extraordinary impact of the sculpture  is the idea that leard can decode that ancient  

city of Nineveh and Sebastien very kindly brought  down not just a copy of it but lead's own copy of  

that in which he has annotated his book when he  goes back to Nineveh and has different experiences  

so we're not allowed to hand it around but if  anybody wants to look at it I can show there's  

two volumes they're quite extraordinary and it  comes up as a sort of leimotif in a Elif’s book  

indeed and I think El’s book is quite important  for the story as well because he not only writes  

of course about his y the cultural artifacts  which make a huge groundbreaking moment in in  

in history but also he writes about the people  he meets along the way right the people of the  

region the minorities of the region including the  Yazidis and when we talk about the Yazidis maybe  

we will come at that later we're talking about  one of the most persecuted minorities in the world  

unfortunately sometimes many times called as quote  unquote devil worshippers in the region the Eidi  

law talks about 72 massacres throughout history  of course the 204 genocide happened in front of  

the eyes of the world but before that there are  multiple massacre so is also a witness to the  

struggles of the minorities of the region and in  that regard he's an important name for me in what  

people like me call Mesopotamia but other people  don't it was it was Leo that got these creatures  

back here we can talk about the rights and  wrongs of that later but what about the other  

two threads Elif what about the Yazidi thread  how does that fit so the third character is a  

little Yazidi girl and this story starts in a  place in Turkey called Hassan K the old name  

was Kea we're talking about the 12,000 year old  civilization in in Southeastern Anatolia today in  

Turkey and if you go there today that place does  not exist anymore what you see in in instead it's  

just water because it has been flooded in order  to build a dam that has the lifespan of only 50  

years in order to build that they have destroyed  12,000 years old history they have destroyed  

biodiversity and the entire ecosystem so it was  a very controversial project and the story starts  

there they travel she and her grandmother towards  Iraq and unfortunately this is the Smyth of 2014  

when Isis starts its horrible genocide against the  Yazidi minorities if I may add this two points the  

very first thing Isis did when they started the  attack was to poison the wells they killed the  

water first and the second thing they did was to  kill the elderly the Yazidic communities don't  

I don't want say they don't have rely on written  culture much it's a it's a minority that transmits  

memory through oral storytelling right so ballads  stories so the second thing Isis did was to kill  

the elderly which means they killed collective  memory then they killed the men and they kidnapped  

women and children as we're speaking right now  there's more than 3,000 women and girls missing  

and something happened when I was writing this  book I read about a Yazidi girl who was saved  

from from a house in Ankara in a neighbourhood  very close to the neighbourhood where I grew up  

my maternal grandmother's house literally two  or three streets away this girl was saved and  

these children are kept as sexual slaves so these  are questions that are very very difficult but I  

think must be raised you know how come that kind  of numbness sing in how come in these so-called  

ordinary neighbourhoods there are still 3,000  women missing so you've got Arthur and then  

your second character is Narin who is going to  be and becomes spoiler alert here the victim of  

the Yazidis genocide but then you're back in the  UK right up to date and you have another woman  

he's also deeply connected with water yes and  her name is Zeleekhah it's she's a she's a the  

child of immigrants and she's a water scientist  and while I was writing her character I had to  

do so much research into water science and I loved  every moment of it so basically Zeleekhah research  

is is studying rivers but not only the rivers  that we see but also the rivers that we do not  

see for instance there are atmospheric rivers  in the sky we don't talk about them we don't  

see them but they're there they're the biggest  rivers actually in our planet but also there are  

underground rivers lost rivers or buried rivers  and I think that metaphor of things being buried  

but still being alive still continuing to shape  US is an important metaphor in my writing so she's  

studying those lost rivers of which London has  so many this is a city of lost rivers isn't it  

but so is New York so is Moscow so is Tokyo for  instance or Athens beautiful Athens when you go  

to Athens today you don't see rivers but actually  there are three buried rivers under the city so  

we built our cities above these rivers thinking  they were unnecessary or they were filthy they  

were dirty but of course there's no such thing  and with rising water levels I think that system  

cannot be sustainable anymore we're going to  see more and more flush floods so now there's  

a counter movement to bring those lost rivers into  daylight and they call it daylighting they started  

in South Korea and so she's a scientist who is  very much into this kind of work I think what's  

I mean I found you know mind-blowing about the  book was how you've got these three story lines  

these three characters they are linked by place  most of it takes place either on the banks of  

the Tigris or on the banks of the Thames and so  you've got two main rivers that link these people  

and they they link in this I'm not going to do a  spoiler here they link in all kinds of different  

ways and there are all sorts of surprising  connections between these people between  

now and Victorian period and there are lots of  wonderfully satisfying bits I I pointed to lead's  

book on Nineveh well actually the hydrologist the  final character Zaleekhah she borrows Leon Neva  

from her uncle because he's been reading it partly  because he's about to buy a probably smuggled bit  

of a Syrian antiquity and she's also interested  in in it because this is just a BM reference she's  

having a growing friendship with a woman who has  a tattoo parlor just opposite the British Museum  

where she will give you a tattoo ink right sadly  I think she doesn't exist otherwise we'd don't be  

there but the what is really kind of in your face  is the idea that water is something that actually  

an awful lot of people so far in the west so  far though I suspect it's changing have taken  

for granted we don't notice it we don't think  of the history of a raindrop it is a a thing  

that just splashes down and goes away and we are  only just becoming aware of water's capacity to  

be misused actually water is lifegiving but it  can be extremely dangerous and rather too many  

people in a sense if you're if you're wanting a  comfortable read rather too many people in El’s  

book die because of water because the misuse of  water is absolutely lethal and at one point you  

say and I think absolutely rightly that you know  we shouldn't perhaps talk about climate crisis  

we should talk about water crisis and what your  book is about in some ways from the dam which  

dispossesses the Yazidis to cholera infected water  in Victorian London you're you're saying notice  

water more because it is what links us indeed I  if I may share this with you the wonderful art  

historian Katie she sent me a picture yesterday  of a book seller who had a tattoo of the sign  

of water which is in the book on the first  page in cuneiform so I think it would be a  

great great tattoo idea but I I so fully fully  agree with everything you said notice water I  

think is such such an important motto for our age  because when we're talking about climate crisis  

basically we're talking about freshwater crisis  of course and even in our city I mean the temps  

is such a remarkable extraordinary river but it's  a zombie river isn't it because not that long ago  

it was declared dead it was so filthy it was  so dirty because of us as human beings the  

way we mistreated the river it was biologically  declared dead and now it is home to more than 200  

bio-species so what the river has done in terms  of renewing itself is really extraordinary but  

yet yet we do not learn again as humans we do not  learn much from history sometimes we draw circles  

and again as we're speaking in the name of profit  for making money for more greed water companies  

are piping sewage back into the river so are we  going forward what exactly is progress do we move  

in a linear arc throughout history I think these  are also questions that the book tries to address  

and one final point if I may make with regards  to what Mary said water is really the connecting  

element we tend to think that it's a very  different water the one that flows in the  

Ganges River or the one in the Euphrates or the  one in Mississippi but actually it's the same  

water that's circulating it's the same water that  we have we might have cried yesterday you know our  

tears or the water that we drink or the water that  we have inside so I think if we want to know how  

connected we are not as human beings fellow human  beings but also how connected we are with nature  

we're not above nature we're just a small part  of an ecosystem we have to look no further than  

the story of water yeah and there's a wonderful  bit in the appendix which where you give the life  

history of a water drop going back to the reign of  Ashurbanipal at and right up to now but I I think  

also I mean you know water is a really crucial and  I think very cleverly executed linking theme but I  

was also struck as I read it again yesterday I  was struck more on the second reading by other  

themes that linked these different stories that  we've got and one of those is theme of memory  

and you've alluded to it already I mean the point  about Arthur is he remembers everything he is an  

individual who never forgets and that in all kinds  of ways is his passport you know in the hierarchy  

of Victoria London to being able to get out of  the slumss and sewers but how memory operates  

for different communities comes in throughout  and the your Yazidi your young Yazidi victim  

Narin she is slowly going death and one of the  questions is what kind of memory do you have  

when you can't any longer he and I was really  struck by trying to weigh up the in a sense  

extraordinary extreme author who will tell you  what day of the week it was on the 5th of December  

1856 right and what happened it's a kind of you  know it's memory go with people whose memories  

have been removed for them or even the hydrologist  Zeleekhah’s uncle who has himself come from Iraq  

has made it really big in the UK he's in the  House of Lords he's done everything right and  

yet one thing he doesn't do is remember  anything he has no memory no meaningful memory  

because I think it goes hand in hand I mean memory  conscience and identity doesn't it and it's it's a  

question that I think about a lot as a storyteller  I come from Turkey a country that has of course a  

very rich history a very complex history but that  doesn't translate into strong memory I think quite  

the opposite we are a society of collective  amnesia in Turkey and so our relationship with  

the past is full of ruptures and when you have so  many ruptures usually those that void is filled  

in by ultra nationalist more Islamist more you  know grandeurs interpretations of the past but  

if you start asking seemingly small questions for  instance how was life like for an Armenian silver  

smith or a Jewish miller or a Kurdish peasant or  an Arab farmer or a Greek sailor how was life like  

for women in the Ottoman Empire how was life like  for a concubine for instance the moment you start  

asking these questions there's silence and I  think as writers we need to be not only drawn  

to stories but also to silences where are the  silences and who are the silenced you know in  

those narratives and for that I want to come back  to oral storytelling and oral history it is so  

crucial because what written culture forgets oral  culture often remembers and so for the minorities  

if you want to dig I think writers need to be  a bit like linguistic archaeologists we need to  

dig deep into those layers of silences and we  have to look at oral history in particular and  

oral culture because there is a memory there  that's transmitted usually by women women are  

memory keep Keepers as well from grandmothers  to grandchildren so in the case of Narin when  

she starts losing her hearing ability her  connection with her grandmother is broken her  

grandmother is not a well-educated woman she's not  capable of turning her stories into written texts  

as she talks about those stories so it's a it's  an oral transmission that is being lost so all  

I'm trying to say it's an endlessly important for  me the connection between memory conscience and  

identity yeah and you know one of the questions  I think that runs right through the book is do we  

make some people's stories count more than others  whose stories count in the world and you at one  

point we'll come on to this in a minute you talk  about the Museum as a place where it both helps  

us remember and also helps us forget and the  that the story whose stories are heard and how  

is absolutely Central to any cultural enterprise  and I think that comes over loud and clear but I  

mean I think we ought to look at just briefly at  the genocide of 2014 because your account of what  

happens to this little girl and to her family is  chilling and upsetting and horribly vivid and I  

suppose I wanted to ask you two questions about  that one is did you what do you gain or what do  

you lose by telling those stories in fiction  rather than in non-fictional reportage yeah  

and what do you think that the archaeological  background to this the culture of the Tigris and  

the Euphrates Mesopotamia this kind of stuff does  that add to the story thank you so much beautiful  

questions you know I for me fiction is where my  heart beats fiction is how how I connect with  

the world of course there are there can be many  more non-fiction books about all these subjects  

but I think fiction does something in its own  special way fiction you know when we when we  

use the word fiction actually is quite misleading  because we think it has nothing to do with truth  

but actually fiction deals with truth in a very  different and in my opinion honest way and also  

in a very emotional way there is a connection  between our emotions and memory when there are  

studies that show when we go to a talk if the  talk is conveyed mostly through numbers graphics  

statistics 24-hours later we forgotten about 56%  of the talk three days Later more than 75% is gone  

in our memory but if the same talk is given to us  through stories and emotions we remember what do  

we remember how it made us feel then like like the  great Maya Angelou said you she said people might  

forget what you said people might even forget what  you've done to them but they will never forget how  

you made them feel so it's always those emotions  that stay with us and I think inside fiction there  

is room and space for multiplicity for me this  is so important because in our daily lives we're  

constantly being pushed into these dualities  being pigeon holed, labelled but when we enter  

a work of fiction I think my job as a writer is  not to try to give any answers I don't know the  

answers myself the only thing I know is I care  about the questions including difficult questions  

about difficult issues such as who tells the story  of the past and who is not allowed to tell that  

story that's an important question but you need to  create a free space where multiplicity of opinions  

can be heard and then you need to let the reader  decide because every reader is going to come up  

with their own answers right so I've met couples  who have been married for 45 years they read the  

same book they don't read it in the same way one  loves it the other one not so much I've met good  

friends who know share each other's every secret  they read the same novel one of them loves one  

character the other one hates that character why  because the readers is not passive they bring  

their own gaze so all I'm trying to say is inside  the work of fiction I think there's this beauty of  

celebrating multiplicity of thought nuance thought  and a question about cultural artifacts and who  

owns the past which is a very complex issue and  an incredibly important issue we cannot avoid or  

postpone this question can be discussed inside the  work of literature and definitely not on social  

media where we just reduced to snippets of slogans  yeah I mean I think it's very interesting that we  

not obviously in the case of the 2014 genocide but  of various bouts horrible bouts of persecution of  

the 100 years more than 100 years earlier I think  we're helped in the novel to see that through the  

art we see there is a history to this and we see  it through the eyes of of author the archaeologist  

the naïve nerdish archaeologist whose eyes are  opened to it and in a sense his eyes being open to  

it open doors indeed and I so appreciate that you  say this because throughout the story Arthur goes  

through a transformation and he tackles I mean  he he he always he struggles with these questions  

at first he's very sure that this is where the  artifacts will be taken better care of and this  

is where they belong but the more he gets to know  the people of the region especially the minorities  

of the region this for me is very important  today when we talk about cultural artifacts  

and questions about repatriation almost never  the minorities are mentioned right it's always  

governments for instance in the case of Iraq I  don't hear many people talking about for instance  

the minorities of the region also having a say on  this issue so it's a very very complex issue and  

Arthur realizes this one thing that disturbs him  is upon coming to London seeing the artifacts of  

from Nineveh in particular in the book in the in  the hands of the wealthy just because they can  

afford to buy them that's something that bothers  him immensely so he starts questioning his own  

role in this on the other hand the book also talks  about the destruction of Isis and what happened  

to these artifacts Isis not only destroyed  them there was a big show in my opinion to  

the world in these videos saying we're destroying  everything you know left and right but underneath  

that vineyard Isis also made profit from selling  you know from illegally smuggling these items so  

there's that complexity but my point is again  coming back to the beauty of literature and art  

we can be quite critical and in my opinion right  so we might debate this if you'd like we can be  

quite critical of colonial institutional history  and the way many art facts have been brought from  

other people's lands at the same time we can have  respect for the passion and genuine dedication of  

individual archaeologists and Scholars such as  George Smith who as I said fell in love with a  

poem and in his own naïve way you know came to the  region to find the missing land so we can do both  

things inside literature yeah and we've now come  on to you know what if you're reading this from  

a Museum perspective is one of the big questions  in the book which is about who owns the past it's  

about cultural property it's about the rights and  wrongs of moving the past across the world and I  

think that Allah does take us on a journey that we  you know we start with him becoming entranced by  

these things actually managing to see what these  cuneiform tablets mean to he wants to go out and  

find the missing bits and at the very beginning  he's being told and he's he's taking on board this  

idea that that western civilization has a duty  it's a duty that in the end kills him actually  

he dies as you said on the banks of a Tigris he  has a duty to save it and as it goes further on  

you know there is no way that Arthur Smyth  becomes a restitution but he does start to  

wonder repeatedly wonder about what the role  of archaeology is in the world order and who's  

you know not just who has a right to have their  stories heard but who has a right to the objects  

and he's very nice about the clash between towards  the end between Gilgamesh and these things when he  

says no nobody owns a poem we can all we can all  own Gilgamesh but there is something different  

about material objects and so we go on his journey  which is just increasingly questioning about what  

the stake of the archaeologist is what the stake  of the Museum is though in part the Museum that  

you conjure up is a Museum of sheer pleasure  actually it's wonderful you know Zaleekhah  

meets her to two artists from across the road here  just where we are and then they have a coffee in  

the great court and it's absolutely wonderful and  that I you said a while ago go it's it's great to  

be able to chew this over in fiction yeah rather  than just sound off on social media as if these  

questions were simple that's so true and I think  it all most of this debate is also related to  

identity isn't it we tend to think of identity  in a very solid static and almost monolithic way  

which immediately creates an in perception of US  versus them you know here versus there but I think  

if we could start to think of identity in a in a  much more liquid way in a much more fluid way of  

course it's very normal and beautiful actually  for everyone to feel very attached to the land  

of their ancestors or where they're coming from or  their cultural identity in that regard so that's  

maybe one circle many ancient philosophers Greek  philosophers actually wrote about this identity  

like water ripples in a in a in a lake so that's  one circle but then you can also feel connected  

to your country you can also feel connected  to the continent where you come from and the  

circles get bigger and bigger in my case I think  of course you know Turkish I feel also attached  

to the Balkans the Middle East there are elements  in my soul I feel European the values that I share  

also by birth I become British over the years  and despite what politicians have been telling  

us in this country I would like to think of myself  as a citizen of humankind now the reason why I'm  

mentioning this is because on the one hand it's  of course wonderful that so many people from all  

over the world can come and visit this Museum at  the same time it is not enough in my opinion to  

say well the people of those lands whenever ever  they want they can come and visit these artifacts  

so few people have the access to you know even a  getting a visa so we we cannot continue with this  

argument in my in my opinion but the important  thing is to be open to discussing you know these  

important and complex issues especially in a  place like this I honestly believe that the  

Museums should lead these conversations should  engage in these conversations and we need new  

Solutions we need a new narrative sometimes this  could be a loan sometimes this could be definitely  

repatriation in other cases it might be maybe  digital replicas but we can come up with better  

solutions rather than trying to suppress these  questions which are important questions the final  

thing that I want to add is there's a hurt you  know in many parts of the world people have not  

forgotten they might have lost their objects but  the memory of what they have lost is still alive  

and that memory is transmitted so we have to  find a new conversation a new narrative in my  

opinion not as citizens of here or as citizens  of there but as citizens of humankind yeah and  

you know the big question then is what does it  mean to say that these things that we're sitting  

between in a way they belong to everybody they  both belong to everybody and they belong to the  

British Museum and they sort of belong to the  place where they were first displayed and those  

are really complicated issues issues of ownership  and belonging and what should happen to them and  

suppose I thought it was almost best done at least  as a kick-off infection because you were able to  

see different people's good people's perspectives  differ on this and it is you know in some ways  

what what you say is makes the Museum seem or any  museum yeah seem a a a wonderful place that modern  

culture needs at one point you say brilliantly  or rather one of your characters does I doubt  

any therapists this is Zaleekhah’s friend I doubt  any therapists would send their patients to the  

British Museum but when you're next to something  so in impossibly old it kind of puts things in  

perspective and I think that's brilliant and she  goes on to say referring to these the technical  

term is Lamassu I think everyone should hang out  with a Lamassu every now and then and so there's  

a warmth of a feeling for the Museum but also a a  recognition in other parts of the book about who's  

excluded by that and it's it's hard to get your  head around yes and I think again that's that's  

the beauty of of literature but knowledge is so  important isn't it because I think we live in an  

age in which we're bombarded by information  but there's very little knowledge and maybe  

even less wisdom and it's a it's a question  how do we change that ratio maybe let's spend  

less time with information but more time with  knowledge hopefully more time with wisdom I think  

for knowledge we need nuanced conversations  not Snippets of information the Snippets of  

information is just an Illusion it's it it gives  us the impression that we know the subject but we  

don't we forgot to say I don't know you know  I don't know was an amazing point it was the  

beginning of philosophy to be able to say I don't  know now we can Google anything everything in the  

next five minutes I can say anything about you  know any subject but that's not knowledge so I  

think for knowledge we need to slow down and it's  very important that museums open up these doors of  

knowledge like how did these artifacts end up here  it wasn't a smooth journey on the way somewhere  

broken somewhere lost but when I say this I'm also  saying this again as a Turkish writer who is aware  

of the of the role of the Ottoman authorities  for instance let's also discuss that and when  

I say this I also want to talk about the role of  for instance the fanatics who have destroyed the  

cultural artifacts let's also talk about that but  those are all layers and layers of knowledge but  

eventually hopefully this is a conversation that  can go towards wisdom and I think for wisdom we  

need to bring together the mind and the heart  so that requires an emotional attachment that  

requires empathy and I think empathy has to lead  this discussion yeah and I think we now ought to  

open it up to a wider discussion I should just  say that if had a favourite page in a in this  

novel It's a wonderful novel by favourite page  is Page-61 where you see young Arthur outside the  

British Museum his he's employed you know in in a  print maker outfit he has very little time of his  

dad is a drunker his mom is really nonfunctional  and he he's very attracted by the British Museum  

and he comes he one day he leaves the print maker  in Covent Garden and he comes here and he sees  

a crowd of people outside the Museum and what's  going on is that these figures are being brought  

in they're being wheeled in and up the steps and  loads of people have come to look and he's struck  

by wonderment but it's not just the wonderment  that was what kind of got me it's that he finds  

himself next to some old guy and just and asks for  a bit of explanation and it turns out that the old  

guy he's standing next to is Samuel Birch who was  The Keeper of the department I don't know what it  

was called then Oriental Antiquities thank you  thank you Sebastien and so he explains a bit and  

he realizes that the Arthur is a strange but very  interesting kid and he says to Arthur if you want  

to come and see them you come in go up the steps  and just ask for me because no one will then throw  

you out and I will show you four years later that  sort of happens but there is a kind of glimpse  

there of the way that this working class lad life  is overturned by the kindness of one fairly crusty  

has to be said of an old curator who just spots  that he's interested and that the real problem  

and this is what you're saying I think the real  problem is to put that that real experience that  

wonderful experience next to what we know about  rapacity exploitation imperialism etc etc because  

both those stories both those stories are true  in some way indeed yes both those stories need  

to be told side by side yeah I think we should  now open this up I don't know if we've got some  

mics of we have I don't have my glasses on so  so I don't have to look at the Venus like to ask  

that question just hands up hands up and or make a  comment hands up and a mic will come to you and we  

time traveled a long way so there' better be Some yes not a very thrilling question but  

at least kicks it off which is I when you were  thinking about this book what where did it come  

from for you what what brought you here and also  as an aside how much when did when did you first  

come to the British Museum do you do you have a  clear memory I've spent a lot I work for the BBC  

and I've spent quite a lot of time doing things  about the British Museum recently and including  

interviewing somebody who really remembers their  first time that they came to the British Museum  

and how much time they spent here because it's  just full of the most incredible wonders but I  

wonder for you when that was absolutely thank  you so much I came to the British Museum for  

the first time many years ago but back then I  wasn't living in the UK and then ever since I  

moved here I've been coming quite often but while  I was writing the book that was a very different  

visit because I was trying to visualize you know  where would George Smyth be you know where would  

what what would be his room like there's a  lot of you know in the archives we can find  

a lot of information about him but there also  you know the blanks as well you know so so we  

need to I think it's someone that the world  should know more about we need to know more  

about so those last two years was it was it was  incredible it was a very different type of visit  

and especially in this part of the Museum I I I  spent much much more time I've been also reading  

a lot the reading my reading was was was very  eclectic actually how did the idea come to me  

actually it came with a with a drop of water  but it also came with the Epic of Gilgamesh I  

have to say and perhaps you might think that you  know coming from Turkey I might be very familiar  

with the Epic of Gilgamesh that people in Turkey  read about it that is not the case our knowledge  

of the Epic of Gilgamesh is very superficial  and when I started reading properly the Epic  

I really was struck so we're basically talking  about the oldest piece of literature known in  

human history and I think in so many ways it is  such a relevant story for our times Gilgamesh  

and I I love Greek mythology but unlike many  Greek myths in the Epic of Gilgamesh there  

are no heroes there's no hero in a conventional  sense just the opposite to begin with Gilgamesh  

is a terrible creature terrible awful man or half  man half Divine and you wouldn't like him at all  

but it's only through journeys and friendship and  loss and defeat he comes back as a changed person  

and as a kinder person so it's a story about the  possbility for change even from a very low and  

terrible place there's hope it's a it's a story  about tyranny about the danger of power it's also  

a story about taking other people's things you  know going into their lands there are layers it's  

a story about climate crisis it's so unfortunate  that today we associate the Middle East mostly  

with violence conflict at least the media coverage  is like that but we're talking about a land that  

was once upon a time home to the wealthiest  civilizations incredible complex irrigation  

systems right so when you delve into the epic you  realize the complexity of the region and I really  

think in in many ways it's a story that should be  told today that's how everything began for me from  

the drop of water to the epic of Gilgamesh which  straight brought me into the flood tablet if I may  

add one or two words about the flood tablet it's  so important what George Smith discovered because  

that's what brought me into George Smith when  he starts reading the flat tablet he realizes  

the story told there you know about the deluge  the floods water everywhere an arc or maybe I  

should say a coracle like Professor Irving Finkle  pointed out in which there are animals and human  

beings how they fly a pigeon or a bird to see if  there's a land nearby and so on so when he starts  

reading this imagine his shock because the story  is very familiar isn't it it's the biblical story  

of the flood except this was written thousands  of years back not only that before it was written  

put on clay tablets by scribes written down it  was transmitted orally so we're talking about  

a very ancient epic which is much older than the  Old Testament so it splits the Victorian society  

into two those who are more inclined towards  religion they say well you see it proves that  

the sacred books were right it shows that these  things really happened whereas those who are more  

science-minded would say actually what the Old  Testament or the or the biblical story saying  

is the repetition of age old stories over and  over so depending on where you stand you can  

love the flood tablet for different reasons which  is exactly the story of what's happening today so  

it's incredibly important and groundbreaking what  George Smith discovered but that's how everything  

started from the drop of water to the epical  to J Smith and in a way you get the feeling  

that Arthur as the novel goes on Arthur becomes  a bit more like Gilgamesh that he travels and he  

becomes kinder yes and there's and that's his  poem yes and he's seeing himself and there's  

something kind of moving in the way that you  know you know this isn't going to end well yeah

it's been a wonderful conversation so thank  you and I can't wait to read the book but I  

want to ask a question which is more from the  Museum end I wonder if you could both in your  

own words describe what you think the purpose  of the international museum in the 21st century  

is oh John that's a really that's an easy one  who's going to do this to make us think about  

ourselves better and harder and more critically  I think that there is no point I think Elif has  

been saying this a bit there's there's no point  about in having a museum about which we all  

agree museums have to cherish the idea that their  focus is of debate that it's where we can disagree  

it's where we can find you know putting in this in  modern terms a safe space to have very difficult  

discussions and I think in some ways that's what  at least novel does it shows that come at this  

from a slightly different angle and you can talk  about all kinds of things that you thought were  

you know restricted to not very sophisticated bits  of social media yeah they should all go back no  

they should stay you are ruining our culture you  are a load of thieves nobody's getting anywhere  

with that kind of that sort of talk it's a way  of finding out how the Museum can Embrace its  

responsibility to be difficult museum should be  I mean alif talks about them being good therapy  

but or her character talks about them me good  therapy I also think you should go away from a  

museum feeling discomforted a little bit made to  made to reflect a bit differently I think there's  

wonderment you know I shall never forget sitting  here there is wonderment but it's about also  

wondering about how you know what you do and I  think to put that more strongly it's not just that  

we ought to cherish our debates and disagreements  about Museums we ought to reckon that if we didn't  

have those debates then the Museum wouldn't  be doing its job and I think that's absolutely  

crucial what would it be like to have a Museum  that we all agreed represented the past perfectly  

it would be ghastly and I think that one of  the ways that you can get inside those issues  

which we find it very hard to get inside in kind  of standup debates is fictionally definitely yeah  

thank you so much for the question I think all  empires have very difficult complex debates that  

they need to face when I say empires debates about  empires but the difference between a democracy and  

the non-democracies in a democracy we can walk  into a books store right a book shop and easily  

find books that question the Imperial legacy from  different points of view the good and the bad the  

Beauties and the atrocities and the writers of  those books are not arrested or prosecuted or  

imprisoned it is incredibly important for  a democracy the health of a democracy to  

be open to these discussions it's not like  one empire is better than another you know  

anything like that but the biggest discuss biggest  difference is are we open to having these debates  

and these debates matter and I really think  institutions such as these they're so important  

and so complex and there's so much cultural  heritage here they should lead lead the way  

I also think language matters a lot as a writer  for instance the fact that we use the word the  

definition Elgin marbles disturbs me why do we  say Elgin marbles they have not Elgin marbles  

they're not Elgin marbles either they're  Parthenon marbles or Parthenon structure  

even even a detail like that I think matters  so to be open to this linguistic change again  

the Museums lead making this leading the  way the way in that linguistic change is  

also very important but the third thing is and  I learned this from Dr Sebastien Reay because  

I know he's working in the region with many  archaeologists in Iraq also you know helping a  

younger generation of Iraqi archaeologists women  minorities perhaps people who would not have  

access to that you know kind of public education  so this is also very important and I really think  

museums need to engage more in these massively  important projects as well and in the meantime  

we definitely cannot postpone the debate that we  are having let's keep engaging we don't have to  

solve it we cannot solve it in one go but just  to be open to having these nuance conversations  

especially through literature and art I think it's  is it's going to be a good way forward a good step  

for it I think that is a bit like your neck of  the woods John you work to National Trust this  

is I mean one thing you're very open about  actually in the book and you know it's there  

aren't any obvious heroes here and you we you  know young Arthur is captivated by these things  

you make it absolutely clear from page one that  the Assyrian Empire was a very very nasty place  

indeed and that you can be both captivated how not  by this and everybody's captivated by their five  

legs not four and you know it's it's wonderful but  that's written on the back of slavery exploitation  

cruelty and murder of course that's another  chapter and it's an important one because in  

the library of Ashurbanipal we're talking about  thousands of tablets that were brought from all  

over the Empire but sometimes by force by coercion  sometimes by deceit sometimes you know acquired  

perhaps more peacefully but that's a very complex  story and especially the story of Ashurbanipal who  

the most the most educated King that the Empire  has ever seen before or after but it doesn't  

mean he's less cruel than his predecessors so yes  that's another complex story nasty man read books  

sadly two yes thank you yeah that's nice men read  books as well and women we got time for just one  

more I think I'm just interested in the in the  thread that that introduced the recent experience  

of the of the Yazidi women because of course it's  it's currently right now the 10th anniversary of  

all of that happening and it happened at the  hands of those who were also captivated by a  

notional past because what they were seeking to  do was to create a caliphate in a part of the  

world which they thought was much more related  to their history of of of their religion and  

that they wanted to create something which was  challenging Western democracy and the Yazidis got  

in the way of that and signified something that  even predated the coming of Islam or Christianity  

or Judaism and they saw it it primitive and there  for deserving of of annihilation and I just it's  

another example of being caught up in a past that  isn't necessarily truthful and isn't truthful but  

but which somehow captured the imagination of an  rather ill-informed group of people indeed very  

very much so and of course there's there is an  nostalgia for a for a past that never was true  

there's also a lot of ignorance for instance even  the word Yazidi Yazidi Yazidi I mean there there's  

a linguistic distinction that is very important in  the part of the world where I come from because in  

a very ignorant way they they think that the  aides are responsible for the for the killing  

of the prophet's grandsons which is not true at  all so there's a lot of ignorance and confusion  

as well and as you said pointed out I think most  importantly there's dehumanization you know just  

say they're not people of the book so I can do  whatever I want but one of the things I wanted to  

show in the book was this is not only the story of  2014 what happened in 2014 was definitely a most  

extreme form of genocide it happened in front  of the eyes of the world and earlier we talked  

about this single drop of water for me the most  difficult chapter to write was the mount when midi  

families had to run away towards we're talking  about more than 50° temperature no Shades no tree  

whatsoever and the people that I talked with the  survivors or people who have been working with the  

survivors those interviews were the hardest ones  to listen they told me how drops of water families  

had to ration drops of water among their children  to keep them alive so that was something that  

made me realize you cannot take for granted even a  single drop of water the resilience of the Yazidi  

communities is is is just remarkable but I think  we have some very difficult discussions that we  

urgently need to have especially now that there's  this in August it was the 10th anniversary it's  

not only Isis coming from outside and perpetrating  these crimes but how is it it possible that  

neighbour turns against neighbour is another story  and that's how of course the worst atrocities  

throughout history start so dehumanization how  this has been systematic throughout the throughout  

the centuries and how we as an International  community have a responsibility in my opinion  

to help especially women and children to heal  there's a lot of individual and collective  

healing that needs to happen and I I think we have  a responsibility in that as well yeah it's very  

striking that in lead's book which we usually  only quote the main title and its remains the  

subtitle says with an account of a visit to the  Zion Christians of Kurdistan and the Yazidis or  

devil worshippers so the that demonization of the  you know is here in one of the founding texts of  

Assyrian studies written into the subtitle and  it so there is a a a history there a history yeah  

and it's a history within scholarship as well as  within modern geopolitics yes absolutely why are  

like Syria Turkeys of course it's a so that's  yeah your responsibility oh what that yeah and  

that that's that comes out very clearly in what  alif is saying I think that I am going to this not  

really spoiler alert but the young deaf girl it's  a terribly sad story but for her there is half  

happy ending there is yeah it's not a spoiler yeah  we can say that yeah happy ending but but just on  

that note I mean because we've been talking about  really difficult subjects right heavy subjects I  

think again through literature you can also talk  about this this the dance between maybe melancholy  

and hope what keeps us more optimistic you know  how we find more resilience when we learn about  

each other's stories how that's why why global  solidarity matters why global sisterhood matters  

so I think at least personally that's something  that I that I wanted to be able to hold in my  

hands both The melancholy but whatever the  opposite is the optimism the hope and the  

resilience I think that's there as well especially  in the story of Ides and also in the story of  

water yeah I think at this point it's time that  everybody should be able to get a drink and some  

other refreshments there's plenty of time before  the kind of last orders will go just before 9:00  

but meanwhile I should say I think thank you very  much to Sebastien who do come and look at these  

wonderful books by Elif but I should also say  now he's here and I can direct him convenient  

you conveniently to him that the British Museum  is still involved in archaeology in the region  

but with a rather different politic and there is  a collaborative excavation at guu which has just  

got he tells me new funding and in the British  Museum's International training program there  

have been some outstanding students coming to  learn and share their skills about archaeology  

from Iraq so it's the tradition continues but it's  perhaps less imperialist and more sharing than it  

was but the most important thing is to say thank  you to thank you so much for making this happen

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There are Rivers in the Sky | Elif Shafak & Mary Beard In Conversation at the British Museum

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There are Rivers in the Sky | Elif Shafak & Mary Beard In Conversation at the British Museum