Andrew Knight

Andrew Anastasios

Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios

Constantinople, 1919. Joshua Connor, an Australian farmer, arrives in Turkey to fulfil a pledge made on his wife's grave - to find the bodies of their three sons, lost in 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 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? This novel tells the complete story of The Water Diviner and is based on the original screenplay by Andrew Anastasios and Andrew Knight. It is inspired by true events found within personal accounts and official records from the Great War.

The Water Diviner

When the Great War ends, Joshua Connor, a grieving farmer and sometime water diviner from the Mallee in Victoria, sets out to fulfil his wife's dying wish - to travel to Gallipoli to recover the bodies of his three sons and bury them in consecrated ground. Crescent collides with cross, and hope with reason as he discovers that his eldest son, Art, may still be alive. When Connor makes a desperate dash into the perilous heart of Anatolia one question haunts him: If Art is alive, why hasn't he come home? Andrew Anastasios and Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios' The Water Diviner is not a war novel, not even an anti-war novel. Instead it focuses on the battles that go on inside the hearts and minds of a small group of Australians and Turks as they struggle to bury their dead and rebuild their lives after the First World War. The story is based on first-hand resources, diaries and official records, and has been adapted as a feature film starring Russell Crowe.

Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios

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