After a long delay, "Death on the Nile" is finally expected to be released in February 2022.

The film is inspired by the famous English writer Agatha Christie's novel (1890-1976), which was first published in 1937, and the novel shows the novelist's fascination - ranked by Guinness Book as the best-selling novelist of all time - with the Middle East and its ancient past, especially Egypt, which was a turning point in the life of Christy.

In his report in the New Lines magazine, John Yi Wong, a doctoral student in Egyptology at the University of Toronto, noted that Christie first visited Egypt at the age of 17, shortly after completing her studies in Paris;

She advised her mother to spend the winter in warmer weather after a bout of serious illness.

The choice of Cairo was not unusual, Egypt at that time was largely under British administration, and the famous English tour operator Thomas Cook & Son regularly organized tours of the area, and financial turmoil has become a constant in the family since Agatha's father passed away, so the season in London was expensive, while the cost of living in Cairo was much easier.

Teenage girl in Egypt

Christie, who considered herself shy and socially introverted at the time, described her three months in Egypt as "a dream of happiness".

She went to 5 dances a week, enjoyed the attention of young people, and later in her life Kristi saw that her time in Cairo was pivotal in overcoming her chaos.

The city made a special impression on the talented girl, and Christie will base her first unpublished novel, Snow on the Desert, on her experience at the Gezira Hotel in Cairo.

Christie sent her manuscript to a number of publishers, but they refused to publish it, as she expected, due to her lack of experience at the time, and later recounted her time in Cairo in her autobiography, An Unfinished Portrait.

However, teenage Christie had not yet developed a passion for antiquity. Other than a short trip to the pyramids of Giza, she repeatedly refused her mother's invitation to visit the archaeological sites in Luxor, preferring to indulge in her new passion for polo (wand), and it took about 20 years before she saw The temples and scenery that she recounted in her most famous works, and she said of this, "The wonders of antiquity were the last thing I cared to see (then), and I am very glad that they did not attract my attention...I could have spoiled them if I saw them with unappreciated eyes. There is no greater mistake in life than Seeing or hearing things at the wrong time” (Agatha Christie: A Biography).

The novel "Death on the Nile" by Agatha Christie has been turned into more than one movie and theatrical (Al Jazeera)

In 1922, shortly after the beginning of Christie's writing career, the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings, and this event led to the emergence of a new wave of "Egyptology" ignited by the media, especially The Times, which Purchased exclusive publishing rights to prospecting news.

The exclusivity agreement for The Times meant that many other Western correspondents who came to Egypt had to resort to speculation and fabrication, and the so-called "curse of the pharaohs" revived after incidents following the discovery of the tomb.

The writer says that the idea that Egyptian mummies and spirits can cause misfortune is an old idea and has been part of popular culture since Napoleon's famous trip to Egypt, and was inspired by Christie's in her short story "The Adventure of the Pharaonic Tomb" in 1924.

At this point Christie's portrayal of Egypt has remained superficial, yet the next chapter in Christie's career will be deeply influenced by her new interest in the ancient past.

writer under pressure

In 1926, after more than a decade of marriage, Archibald Christie and Agatha divorced, an unexpected and devastating experience for the writer, who had lost her mother a few months earlier, leading to her famous 10-day disappearance, which attracted widespread media coverage.

Agatha Christie was at the time a novelist who enjoyed great fame after her highly successful novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Christie referred to the divorce as the moment she transitioned from an amateur writer to a professional writer, as writing became a necessity to support herself, and within two years she became frustrated with the constant pressure to produce more novels.

After a fleeting conversation with a sailor, Christie became fascinated by the idea of ​​visiting Baghdad.

She was also reading about the excavations by English explorer Leonard Woolley at Ur of Iraq, an excavation that had only been surpassed globally by 1928 through the early discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb.

After a struggle over tickets and travel documents, Christie boarded the Orient Express, and in Baghdad the writer made an expedition to the ancient city of Ur, where she toured the site as a dear guest.

Leonard's wife Catherine Woolley was an important member of the excavations and a huge fan of Agatha's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

The two eventually became good friends, and the main character in Christie's novel "Murder in Mesopotamia" is based on Catherine.

The novelist fell in love with Orr and will pay a second visit within a year at the invitation of the Woolleys.

One of Leonard Woolley's assistants was a promising archaeologist in his twenties named Max Mallowan, described by Christie as "thin, dark, young, and very quiet. He rarely spoke but was aware of all that was required of him."

On Christie's second visit to Ur, Catherine commissioned young Mallowan to accompany the novelist to historical sites throughout Iraq.

However, the trip was cut short when Christie received news from England that her 10-year-old daughter, Rosalind, had severe pneumonia, and Mallowan was her escort back to Britain during the anxious flight, and at the end of the year she married him.

excavation work

After their marriage, Mallowan regularly accompanied Christie on excavations in the Middle East.

She greatly enjoyed the way of life in this field, spending the beginning of the excavation season writing, and then devoting herself entirely to fieldwork when the excavation intensified.

Christie soon became very acquainted with a field that greatly influenced her writing, and during that era Christie regularly produced 2 or 3 books a year, many of which are considered among her best works.

Funerals and funeral ceremonies must be enjoyed in human blood. Where would archeology be if this was not a feature of human nature?

In Egypt, Mallowan and Christie became friends with Howard Carter, the English excavator and archaeologist in the tomb of Tutankhamun, often staying together at the Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor, at a time when Mallowan described Carter as a "cynical and entertaining figure".

Christie's is influenced by Egypt's ancient past, and winter visits have become a regularity after the excavation seasons in Iraq and Syria, Egypt becomes a source of inspiration for the queen of crime.

In 1933, Christie and her husband boarded a cruise ship in the Nile, which took them to the temples of Luxor, Aswan and the Nile Falls, where Christie was inspired by the novel, published in 1937, "Death on the Nile."

Akhenaten

At about the same time, Christie also wrote a historical play called "Akhenaten", about the pharaoh of the same name who began to convert from traditional Egyptian religion, but was criticized after his death.

The motive for the play came from Egyptologist Stephen Glanville, an old friend of Mallowan who had supplied Christie with literature from the time of Akhenaten.

The play shows the novelist's deep knowledge of the subject, and many of its dialogues were quoted from the same ancient texts.

Christie's interest in ancient Egypt is not limited to its mortuary practices. She was fascinated by the way past societies reflect the present, and by the constant conflict between tradition and change.

These topics were often a source of discussion between her and Mallowan, and much of the play revolves around these questions.

Mallowan dedicated several pages in his memoirs to "Akhenaten", describing it as "the most beautiful and profound play by Christie... The treatment is as close to historical plausibility as possible as any play about the past."

Agatha wrote "Akhenaten" with no expectations of theatrical production at all, and Christie has always enjoyed writing plays, taking it as a respite from the duty of producing crime novels.

She explained that "writing plays is much easier than writing books, because you can see them with your own mind's eye. You are not held back by all this terrible obstruction in the book and prevents you from following what is happening", but "Akhenaten" remained unpublished for decades after its completion.

When war broke out in Europe, Christie returned to work as a health care provider at University College London Hospital, while Mallowan initially served in the Ministry of Aviation.

The breakup with Mallowan was emotionally exhausting for Christie, but World War II coincided with some of the most prolific years of her career.

Crime fiction was also a popular genre at a point when distraction in the form of mobile fiction was in great demand.

Since she rarely received news from Mallowan, Christie also wrote "Come, Tell Me How You Live", a memoir detailing her excavations, including Egypt, about which she also wrote Death Comes at Last in 1945.