Here’s my  interview with Jessica Mudditt of the excellent Five Books. Five Books asks writers for recommendations for “the best five books on everything,” and so far they’ve cast a wide net, with writers including William Dalrymple, Philip Gourevitch and Amira Bennison. (And check out their sister site, The Browser.) Here’s a snippet of my talk with Jessica:

Why is your book called The Black Nile?

Because for the most part my journey is along the African Nile. In the popular imagination, the Nile runs from Egyptian monument to monument, but this is only a small part of it. It’s an African river. Questions of race loom large in Sudan; the issue is extremely complicated. And because oil has such a role in the region and in the book – all this together made it The Black Nile.