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Wilbur's
comments on RIVER GOD: It has
the same sort of mystical element and an ancient historical background as SUNBIRD.
The idea for the novel came from the 1988 discovery of the tomb of a previously
unrecorded Egyptian queen, who died about 1780BC. The academic who led the dig on the West
Bank of the Nile invited Smith to assist in the transcription of precious scrolls found in
a hidden niche. Smith used his imagination to expand on the material in the scrolls,
written by the eunuch slave Taita about his beloved queen, Lostris, her lover
Tanus, and
the Pharaoh, whom Lostris had been forced to marry when she was only 14.
As a writer of fiction, primarily, and not as a
historian, I have taken liberties, Smith said.
I've added
dialogue and built up the characters, but generally speaking the historical background is
authentic. The Hyksos invasion was a time of confusion and chaos, so very little has come
down to us from that period, and that's why I was able to indulge my imagination a little
bit, filling in the gaps. (The broad theme) is accurate not only from the Taita scrolls
but from what we know, what Egyptologists know about that period. It all fits in.
Smith said the scrolls, which were translated at the Cairo Museum, were fragmentary.
The author had no character coming through at all because
the script is not conducive to conveying subtle emotions, he said.
So I've had to pile on a lot of my own feelings. The slave Taita,
the narrator of the story, has a lot of me in him: I've managed to usurp the chair from
him.
The scrolls were written as a
personal account and a tribute to the woman he loved, and also to his own
genius and power and to brag about what an extraordinary person he was. I've kept that
sort of feeling in the book and I thought it was quite endearing that he was such a
braggart and such a blowhard, but also had other qualities which were of great value:
faithfulness and love, compassion, love of animals and his people. All these things were
hidden in the text, but I had to fossick them out. My imagination was allowed to run
riot.
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Ancient Egypt initially seems an unusual topic for Smith. However,
he has long been fascinated by the African continent's early history and one of
his most popular novels in SUNBIRD, an exciting adventure story about an
archaeologist who uncovers the remains of an ancient African city and is
transported back in time to that era. I have
received so many requests over the years for another SUNBIRD, that I decided I
should take heed. With RIVER GOD, I have remained in Africa, but this time I
have moved further north than ever before to the banks of the Rover Nile.
It was as a child that Wilbur developed an interest in
African history, particularly in Egypt at the time of the pharaohs. He has since
read so many books on the subject that when he came to write RIVER
GOD he didn't need to do much extra research. Also, he has visited
Egypt frequently over the years, he knows the country and climate well. He says
that the book grew quickly from an idea about the life of an Egyptian slave that
had been 'buzzing around' in his mind for some time. He chose the period of the
Hyksos invasions for the setting, started with the few facts which are known
about that time and built the story around them. My
books are always such a mixture of fact and imagination that not even I know
where one begins and the other ends, he admits. The vast scope
of RIVER GOD must have made the book a daunting
undertaking but Smith says, I had a great deal of
fun writing it. I only wish that all my characters would come forward so readily
and the plots present themselves so naturally!
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The
hieroglyphs used in the book write the name of the god of the Nile inundation,
Hapi, from the papyrus of Ani. Each chapter begins with this image.
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