The arts interview: Eleanor Williams

Eleanor Williams discusses Anna and the Angel, her contemporary feminist adaptation of a timeless story from the Old Testament with Isobel Williams.

Anna and the Angel is a beautiful retelling of an often-overlooked biblical story from the Book of Tobit. Written through a feminist lens, this ancient narrative is transported into twenty-first century Wales with newfound vigour and contemporary immediacy.

Two families are in crisis, dealing with the immediate aftermath of disability. Unwittingly, they both have a solution to help the other’s issue – they just don’t know each other yet. As the increasingly affectionate relationship between two strangers blossoms, the lives of mothers Edna and Anna become curiously intertwined. The universal need for human connection and compassion shines through this timeless story.

Transformation

You describe the Book of Tobit as a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” story that doesn’t appear in every bible. What attracted you to this story and inspired you to transport this ancient narrative into a twenty-first century context?

There’s a lovely painting of Tobit in the National Gallery by Andrea del Verrocchio, Tobias and the Angel, which I’d always liked. I was intrigued by what was going on, so I read the Book of Tobit really as a result. I first encountered the painting decades ago, so it’s an idea that has been brewing for a long time. The original story was written around 200 BC, but when I read it, I was really struck by how modern it is. So, I kind of dared myself at the beginning – could I move it? And then suddenly it came to life.

There were also important twenty-first century visions to consider. In the Bible, Tobit’s blindness gets cured, but I really didn’t want that to happen. Disability doesn’t need to be cured.

Universal story

You beautifully characterise Wales as “a nation of people who seem to believe, deep down, everyone’s connected, if only they can find out how.” Can you give an insight into why a contemporary Welsh setting particularly lends itself to this biblical narrative?

I think that sense of everyone being connected is a Welsh thing, but I also think it’s a spiritual trait – that at a spiritual level we are all connected. What happens to one affects us all. And I suppose the religious way we see that is through intercessory prayer, where we pray for people we’ve never met because we’re all connected. I’m born and bred Welsh, and I think that because I’m a reader in the Diocese of Llandaff, a biblical narrative might well be in Wales because it’s universal.

Female voices

By placing women at the centre of the narrative, Anna and the Angel retells an ancient tale through a feminist framework. Why did you feel it was important for this story to be told through a female lens?

I was very conscious when I read the original that it was the women keeping the show on the road, and yet they’re hardly mentioned. For instance, in the original story when Tobit goes blind – which kickstarts the whole narrative – it’s his wife Anna who does “women’s work”, but she’s completely dominated by the men in the story. So, for me it was a question of bringing her forward into the light and pushing the men back. The story still worked, but now I felt there was credit being given to the people who kept it all running.

Written through emails from one woman to another, your book explores the touching relationship between two friends who build a connection by exclusively communicating online. What attracted you to writing in this experimental form?

I love epistolary novels, starting with Evelina by Fanny Burney, and I’m a big letter writer myself.

And emails are the modern variation of letter writing…

Exactly. The format works, so I thought it was a neat way to hear the voices of the women, which was important. I made sure that they wrote quite differently; for example, Anna speaks with lots of dashes and Edna uses semicolons. In that sense it was quite a useful way to create a distinction between them.

Building blocks

Where do you find inspiration? Are there any writers that particularly influence your work?

I particularly love Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather; Cather discovered the diaries of the first Archbishop of Santa Fe in New Mexico, and she was so entranced by these diaries that she wrote a barely fictionalised account of his life which I think is sublime.

My favourite form is the essay – the heart of non-fiction. There’s a book that comes out every year, The Best American Essays, and I think I’ve got every year back to 2003. But for me it’s not just writers – it’s also artists and musicians. There’s a lovely painting in the National Museum in Cardiff, A Corner of the Artist’s Room by Gwen John; it’s her room and furniture but injected with this imaginative vision. In terms of music, I love the Goldberg Variations by Bach. I love taking that kernel of fact, of truth, and jumping off from it into however many variations there are. In the case of Anna and the Angel, biblical truth is wrapped up in a new narrative. You have the building blocks, but then you infuse them imaginatively.

What do you hope that readers will take away from this book?

Well, I hope they enjoy it – that would be the main thing. It’s really important to be able to find joy where we can. But if it gives the reader an idea that there might be something bigger than us, that there is a passion, that this will all make sense, then that would be an added bonus.

Anna and the Angel by Eleanor Williams was a prize-winner in the New Welsh Writing Awards and is published by Parthian. It is available from all good bookshops.

Eleanor Williams lives in Cardiff, walks with a stick, is a Reader in the Church in Wales, a lawyer in the public sector and an ambassador for Girlguiding Cymru.