The Water Diviner book hits the bookstores tomorrow, December 9. Written by myself and my wife, Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios, and published by Pan Macmillan, it is based on the original screenplay that Andrew Knight and I penned together. It’s available at all major booksellers, and online – here, here and here, to name a few. And it’s also being released as an eBook through Amazon, which you can order here.
It has been quite humbling and a bit overwhelming to attend the premieres in Australia and Turkey and see the response to our story, that had its origins in a handful of words scribbled in a letter nearly 100 years ago. We have just heard some exciting news about the audiobook being produced by Bolinda Publishing. Aussie Icon and living national treasure, Jack Thompson (check out his film credits!), is narrating the book and it will be in-store for the release of the film on Boxing Day. Russell Crowe’s first acting job was on a great Australian TV series called Spyforce, with Jack Thompson, and then many years later they did The Sum of Us together so it feels serendipitous that Jack is doing the audiobook.
The back blurb reads: “Constantinople, 1919. Joshua Connor, an Australian farmer, arrives in Turkey to fulfill a pledge made on his wife’s grave – to find the bodies of their three sons, lost in battle at Gallipoli, and bring them home. In the enemy city Connor meets Orhan, a mischievous Turkish boy, and his mother Ayshe, who is struggling to keep her family hotel afloat and rebuild her life after the war. Connor can trace life-giving water under the earth, but finding his sons at Gallipoli seems impossible when faced with the gruesome landscape of sun-bleached bones and rotting uniforms. But a Turkish officer gives the broken father hope where there was none – Connor’s eldest son may still be alive. As Connor risks his life travelling into the heart of Anatolia one question haunts him: If his son is alive why hasn’t he come home?”