It’s not uncommon for writers of science fiction to rework other people’s non-sci-fi stories. The classic 1956 movie Forbidden Planet was a retelling of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, while the story in Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 movie Seven Samurai has been retold as both the steampunk anime Samurai 7 and as Stina Leicht’s sci-fi Western novel Persephone Station [which you can read more about by clicking here]. And now Jean Rhys’ 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea is getting similar treatment courtesy Marian Womack’s environmental speculative fiction novel The Swimmers (paperback, Kindle). Though in the following email interview about it, Womack not discusses why she wrote this rewrite, but how our current climate literally influenced it as well.
