An Evening with Elif Shafak and Peter Frankopan

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Today's episode is our recent event with Elif Schafak and Peter Frankopan. They joined us live on stage at Smith Square Hall to shed light on the history of ancient Mesopotamia and the art of storytelling across time and place. Elif Shafak's award winning novels are celebrated.

Globally. Her work has been translated into 58 languages, and her latest, There Are Rivers in the Sky, is an epic story of interconnection, charting the lifespan of a raindrop as it is consumed, subsumed, and transformed across continents and centuries. Elif is joined in conversation by historian and author Peter Francopan. Due to some technical difficulties on the night of the event, we are only able to bring you the final 45 minutes of the event. Please accept our apologies that it can't be released in full, and for the subpar audio quality.

But we hope you enjoy listening. Thank you for your understanding. Now let's join our host, Peter Francopan, with more. Was there a reason that you wanted to write about the Yazidi community in this book? What was it about water and about Nareen in particular that you wanted to to show the reader?

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