Rorate Caeli: Yours is a book in between two rivers, the Nile and the Thames. The plot takes us alternatively to contemporary Egypt and England. The literary pattern is transit, from one bank to the opposite one, and more generally from one river to the other. Behind the eventful itinerary of your main character, Clara, could the watermark (no pun intended) be the Book of Exodus, when the Chosen People leaves the Nile and the Red Sea behind, making their (tortuous) way towards the River Jordan?
Evelyn Oliver: I wish London were the Promised Land! But yes, the book is about journeying from sin to grace. I didn’t intend the two rivers as a literary pattern though. I was born near one and raised near another: it must have influenced me. In retrospect however, I admit that the Nile and the Thames offer a variation on the theme of crossing. Each river is an axis along which the story takes Clara successively to a busy capital city (Cairo and London), a haven (Osly in Sudan, by a ford, and Henley-on-Thames, near a lock) and a martyr’s shrine (Alexandria and Marlow).
