In the Shadow of the Ark

by Anne Provoost, John Nieuwenhuizen (translator)

Offers a look at the circumstances and events surrounding the building of Noah's ark and the great flood that left all but Noah's family stranded and left to perish, focusing on the relationship between Re Jana, a young woman not chosen to be on the ark, and Noah's son Ham during their final days together. Reprint.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, Historical, Religion, Biblical Fiction, Biblical

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Anne Provoost is een Vlaamse schrijfster.

Anne Provoost in de Nederlandstalige Wikipedia

Anne Provoost in de Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren

Anne Provoost bij "Schrijversgewijs"


Anne Provoost is a Flemish writer.

Anne Provoost in the English Wikipedia

Reviews

[Mai · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a bizarre and intensely dislikable book. It's been a while since I read it but I do remember that it didn't make much sense and that the end was really, really weird. In fact, it's a measure of how much this book aggravated me that about six years after reading it, I spent half an hour searching for it even though I couldn't remember the title or the author's full name, just to give it a bad review!

I really wouldn't recommend it just in case you had any doubts. The main character is simply dislikable. My memory of Re Jana is that she came across as amoral and selfish and the rest of the characters are dislikable too. This book doesn't seem to be particularly historically accurate either but I suppose you could call that poetic license.

There's a lot of sex in this book, particularly towards the end and it doesn't seem to serve any purpose or fit in with the rest of the story. It left a sour taste in my mouth, I've never come across such unattractive sex scenes. They reinforced my dislike of Re Jana.

This book may have suffered a bit in translation because a lot of it just sounded wrong. Not in a grammatical way but in that it felt weirdly alien. All in all, it's not worth a read so I would advise anyone and everyone to avoid it at all costs.

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is written as well as most fiction on ancient history, but the author uses it as a pulpit to declaim the Tanakh/Bible with popular atheist diputations; in the process of pointing out all the "obvious" fallacies in the Tanakh's version of the Great Flood, the author displays her own lack of knowledge about factual history, not to mention what the Tanakh actually says.

In addition to the narration of events, the author chooses to depict every character traditionally seen as "good" as a lying, raping, murderer, and the main character's goodness is revealed through inwardly judging while outwarding complying obediently in other characters' badness, culminating in bisexuality with multiple partners, superior homosexuality, and defiant rebellion.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I could get past feeling like someone is retelling the Bible to fit their needs and wants...

I'd really like to like this book, but it was just ok.

[André · Rating 5 out of 5]

Met Vallen kende Anne Provoost in 1994 haar grote doorbraak als Nederlandstalig jeugdauteur. Het boek is inmiddels in diverse talen vertaald en is tevens verfilmd onder de titel Falling.
Ze onderlijnde in dit werk hoe gemakkelijk mensen ten prooi kunnen vallen aan xenofobie en het ideeëngoed van extreem-rechts. De angst voor het vreemde en ‘anders’-zijn uit Vallen is ook een heel belangrijke leidraad in De arkvaarders, haar nieuwte roman, die eigenlijk een herschrijving is van het bijbelse ‘zondvloedverhaal’. Anne Povoost heeft als het ware de vragen die mensen zich al dencennia lang moeten gesteld hebben bij lezing van dit verhaal verwerkt in een persoonlijke en eigentijdse versie.
Om te beginnen neemt zij al een vrouwelijk hoofdpersonage, Rejana, die ook onze gids is door het hele verhaal. Zij is een kind van de donkere moerasmensen die het polytheïsme aanhangen. Rejana woont samen met haar verlamde moeder en haar vader. Vader en dochter omringen de moeder met de tederste zorgen en met haar wensen wordt dan ook rekening gehouden. Wanneer de moeder door het knipperen van haar ogen aangeeft dat het wassende water haar angst aanjaagt, trekken zij met haar naar drogere contreiën. Dat houdt wel in dat zij in contact komen met de blanke woestijnmensen die slechts één god aanbidden en in blinde gehoorzaamheid al zijn wensen en bevelen opvolgen.
Rejana’s vader heeft, net als de andere woestijnmensen een afschuw van deze blanke mensen, die zij smalen Rrattika noemen, net als die wormachtige insecten die zo plat zijn dat je ze niet eens kan vertrappelen. Zij kunnen hun verbazing niet op als ze merken dat er in dit waterarm gebied een gigantisch schip gebouwd wordt door de Rrattika. Rejana’s vader, die een uitstekend botenmaker is, wordt nieuwsgierig en overwint zijn wantrouwen. Hij gaat kijken en besluit mee te doen aan de bouw van het schip. Ook Rejana wil weten wat er aan de hand is. Ze merkt wel dat haar donkere huid wantrouwen wekt, maar toch laat ze zich niet ontmoedigen. En zo komt ze tijdens haar zwerftocht in contact met Cham, een va n de zonen van de bouwheer Noah. Cham en Rejana worden verliefd op elkaar, maar vermits ze beiden uit verschillende culturen komen, dreigen er moeilijkheden.
De woestijnmensen kiezen de vrouwen voor hun zonen, louter in functie van voortplanting en status. Insticnten en driften worden bevredigd, maar liefde en genot komt er niet bij kijken. Dus kunnen Cham en Rejana elkaar enkel via trucjes en camouflagetechnieken ontmoeten. Toch ontstaat er tussen hen een hechte relatie. Zij wast zijn lichaam en maakt het zacht en ontvankelijk met geurige olie, terwijl hij haar vertelt over de doeleinden van het schip, dat eigenlijk een ark is en bedoeld om een handjevol mensen en alle diersoorten van een verschrikkelijke ramp te redden. Rejana maakt zich boos omdat de bouwmeester, de vader van Cham, zijn medemensen en ook trouwens bouwers van de ark in onwetendheid laat over het naderende onheil. Maar dan maakt Cham haar duidelijk dat, volgens de god van de bouwmeester, alleen de rechtvaardigen een plaatje op de ark mogen krijgen. En het zal de bouwmeester Noah zijn die zal belsissen wie die rechtvaardigen zijn.
Rejana komt in opstand tegen het feit dat een gewone sterveling mag belissen over wie rechtvaardig is en wie niet en in het geval van deze ark is dat alleen hij en zijn familie. Maar Cham is én zijn god én zijn vader in de bijbel iets te slim af. Want hij zorgt ervoor, ook al heeft hij nu een wettige echtgenote, de mooie Neclata, die eigenlijk meer gecharmeerd wordt door Rejana dan door haar kersverse echtgenoot Cham, dat Rejana en zelfs nog een andere verstekeling een plaatsje op de ark krijgen.
Moest De arkvaarders vijftig jaar geleden geschreven zijn, dan zou er een schandaal in Vlaanderen en in Nederland losgebarsten zijn, dat wellicht internationale allures aangenomen had, want Anne Provoost laat het almachtige Godsbeeld van gerechtigde toorn in vraag stellen door een eenvoudig meisje, dat ook nog eens alle mogelijke geboden overtreedt door de liefde van een man én een vrouw te delen. En dat is juist het mooie aan dit boek, dat al diegenen die vroeger uit bijbelse verhalen gestoten werden, er nu door de penv van Anne Provoost een ereplaats krijgen.
Ook weet ze, net zoals in De roos en het zwijn de historische preutsheid te vervangen door fijne maar heel knap gevonden zinnelijkheid.. De arkvaarders is een boek dat gonst van de bedrijvigheid, vragen oproept, ethische kwesties aansnijdt, theologen en filosofen voer voor discussie biedt, maar ook de eenvoudige lezertjes zal ontroeren en boeien. Wie het werk van Anne Provoost volgt, zal opmerken dat deze auteur haar kritische kijk op heden én verleden in prachtig proza kan vertalen.
(André Oyen)

[Liza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I find out this was an ark van Noach retelling 200 pages in? Absolutely.
This book was actually pretty decent. It just got a bit confusing when everyone started fucking everyone's wife and I was severely confused. But pop off, I guess.
3/5☆

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

From early 2006 through the COVID-19 years, I immersed myself in the study of comparative religion. It was during that contemplative phase that I read this book.

Anne Provoost’s In the Shadow of the Ark doesn’t so much retell Genesis as inhabit its blind spot—the humid, fragrant space between salvation and exclusion. Reading it feels like being pressed against the outer hull of Noah’s ark, palms flat on wet wood, hearing laughter and hymns inside while the flood gathers at your ankles. It’s a book of bodies, not doctrines; its theology is tactile, whispered through skin and clay.

The narrator, Re Jemmah, daughter of a stonemason, lives in the tension between desire and doom. Through her eyes, Provoost dismantles the sacred geometry of the ark’s construction and reveals the aching architecture of lust, poverty, and displacement. If Virginia Smith’s The Days of Noah was a hymn, Provoost’s novel is a dirge sung in candlelight—sensual, profane, holy in its hunger.

From the first paragraph, the language breathes heat. Stone, wood, sweat, and the slow patience of construction form the sensual vocabulary of Provoost’s theology. The ark is built not from divine command alone but from human labor—men whose muscles remember desire better than devotion. Re’s gaze lingers on Ham, the builder’s son, and their secret intimacy unravels the moral calculus of salvation. If God has chosen Noah’s household alone, what does that mean for love that falls outside the chosen circle? The novel’s central ache lies in that question, vibrating through every plank and kiss.

Provoost writes like someone aware that the Bible’s silence on the doomed millions is louder than any trumpet blast. The flood story, in her hands, becomes a meditation on privilege and exclusion. The chosen are not necessarily the righteous, and the unchosen are not necessarily wicked. It’s a narrative haunted by what Foucault might call the “archaeology of silence”—the history of those whose stories drown before they can be told. In a postmodern sense, Re becomes the voice of textual resistance, speaking from the margins of scripture, turning canonical absence into narrative flesh.

The sensuality of In the Shadow of the Ark is not erotic for its own sake; it’s a rebellion against abstraction. The body here is the last proof of existence before annihilation. When Re and Ham make love, it’s not sin—it’s survival, the desperate insistence that even in the shadow of divine judgment, the human pulse matters. Their coupling is a theology of touch, an embodied form of prayer.

What makes the novel so profoundly modern is its refusal to moralize that intimacy. Desire doesn’t corrupt faith; it complicates it. In Provoost’s cosmology, the Fall never ended—it became the architecture of longing itself. The body remembers Eden even when the world ends in water.

Provoost’s prose is slow and sinuous, as if written in the rhythm of tides. Each sentence glows with the heat of remembered myth. The act of building the ark becomes an allegory for creation and exclusion alike. Noah, seen from Re’s vantage, is both patriarch and tyrant—a man imprisoned by his certainty. His faith is not luminous but blinding. In him, Provoost sketches the dark mirror of modern fundamentalism: the belief that obedience justifies cruelty. His god is absolute, and therefore so is his silence.

The ark itself looms as a metaphor for textual closure—the canon that admits only what fits its blueprint. Everything outside—voices, bodies, doubts—is condemned to drown. Postmodern theory thrives on what leaks through those walls. Derrida would call it the “trace,” Barthes the “grain” of the voice. Provoost gives that grain a name, a body, a story. Re’s narration is an act of deconstruction, undoing Noah’s monopoly on meaning.

There’s an unforgettable passage when the rain begins: the sky lowering, the sound swelling like grief. Re describes the smell of wet clay on her skin, the taste of salt not yet oceanic. Her words are incantatory, half prophecy, half farewell. The flood becomes erotic in its enormity—a consummation between heaven and earth. This is the apocalypse as seduction: the world dissolving into union with its maker. The sensual and the sacred collapse into each other.

Provoost’s achievement lies in how she refuses to let the flood wash away ambiguity. The survivors are not purified but haunted. Even those on the ark carry guilt like a watermark. Re’s exclusion—her fate sealed outside—is less tragedy than transcendence. In dying unnamed, she escapes the tyranny of narrative selection. She becomes mythic absence, the ghost that scripture cannot contain.

Reading Provoost after Kacy Barnett-Gramckow’s He Who Lifts the Skies is like moving from stained glass to smoke. Barnett-Gramckow’s theology is crystalline, her world ordered by providence. Provoost’s is humid, shifting, alive with rot and bloom. Both retell the same apocalypse, but Provoost sings from the other side of the waterline. She understands what Nietzsche meant when he said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Her Genesis is all interpretation, written in flesh.

And yet, for all its sensual immediacy, the novel vibrates with philosophical depth. The question of chosenness—why some live while others drown—resonates through existential thought from Camus to Levinas. If God’s justice cannot be understood, is faith still possible? Re’s refusal to bow before that silence is an act of ethical rebellion. She embodies Levinas’s face of the Other—the one who demands responsibility even as the world ends. To turn away from her suffering is to participate in divine indifference.

The love story between Re and Ham carries mythic weight but modern subtext. Their meetings in the shadow of the ark recall forbidden unions across time—star-crossed lovers who defy systems of belief. Yet unlike Romeo or Tristan, they exist in a cosmos where the gods are not lovers but architects. Desire itself becomes resistance against structure. The sensual detail—Re’s fingers tracing the grain of wood, the smell of cedar and pitch—makes the text almost tactile. You can feel the ark growing between them, a wall made of faith and fear.

When the rain finally falls, it’s both climax and cleansing. The language turns lush, nearly biblical: “The waters came and covered their faces, and they did not know whether it was death or birth.” That sentence encapsulates Provoost’s genius. She refuses to distinguish between destruction and creation. Every ending is a beginning viewed from underwater.

What lingers after reading is not despair but a strange, drowning beauty. The novel becomes a mirror for our age of moral floodwaters—climate collapse, social inequality, the machinery of exclusion still grinding on. We, too, live in the shadow of someone else’s ark: those safe within systems of privilege while others drown at the gates. Provoost’s book feels less like ancient myth than prophecy whispered through time.

The postmodern texture comes through in the fragmentation of perspective. The narrative moves between intimacy and distance, dream and testimony. Language itself becomes unstable, awash in metaphor. Re’s voice sometimes slips into prayer, sometimes into accusation. That slippage keeps the reader afloat but unanchored—a deliberate strategy mirroring the chaos of the flood. In a way, Provoost rewrites Genesis as a metafiction of exclusion: the story of the story that didn’t make it into scripture.

Her imagery borders on the painterly. Light glimmers off wet wood, shadows ripple across bodies. Even damnation is beautiful here. The book reads like Caravaggio on paper—saints and sinners drenched in the same chiaroscuro. That visual intensity aligns with the sensual darkness you asked for: a theology seen through the body, not above it.

There’s also a feminist undercurrent humming through every page. The women around the ark labor unseen, their prayers unheard. Re’s narrative becomes an act of reclamation—a woman’s body writing itself back into myth. Kristeva’s notion of the semiotic chora, that pre-linguistic space of maternal rhythm, pulses beneath the text. The floodwaters themselves feel uterine, engulfing, both life-giving and annihilating. Provoost transforms the patriarchal deluge into a mother’s amniotic ocean.

And yet she never lets the symbolism grow abstract. Every philosophical gesture is anchored in texture: the roughness of rope, the drip of resin, the heaviness of wet hair. It’s as though she’s rewriting the Bible from within the senses. In that way, the novel belongs in conversation with the mystical modernists—D. H. Lawrence, Clarice Lispector—writers who understood that the sacred hides in sweat and soil.

In its final pages, as the flood consumes everything, the narrative fractures into lyric fragments. Time dissolves. Re’s voice becomes elemental—less woman than water, less confession than current. She doesn’t beg for mercy; she becomes the mercy that the text cannot articulate. “I am the rain,” she says, and in that moment, the reader feels the full collapse of metaphysics. There is no outside, no ark, no God looking down. Only water, language, and memory.

When I first read it, during that long stretch of comparative-religion study, I felt both scandalized and sanctified. The novel seemed to mock the very structure of faith even as it worshiped its beauty. It taught me that blasphemy and devotion are twins—both gestures toward something larger than reason. Provoost’s heresy is tender; her rebellion is a form of love.

Re-reading it in a post-COVID world, the book feels eerily prophetic again. Isolation, survival, exclusion—all words that have gained new theological weight. We too have watched floods—of disease, misinformation, grief—rise around us while we build our own arks of screens and walls. Like Re, we stand outside, wanting entry, knowing the chosen spaces are too small for everyone.

In the Shadow of the Ark is, finally, a meditation on the ethics of survival. Who gets to live when the world ends? And what does it mean to desire life among the doomed? Provoost never answers. She just leaves us with the image of a woman tracing her lover’s face as the rain begins—an image that feels like the first line of another, unwritten scripture.

The novel closes in stillness: the water rising, the ark receding, Re’s voice dissolving into the sound of endless rain. It’s devastating, but also strangely liberating. The apocalypse becomes intimate, sensual, not cataclysmic but erotic—a final union between human and divine, lover and flood.

When I close the book, I think of the line from Revelation: “And there was no more sea.” Provoost rewrites it as defiance. In her world, the sea remains, eternal and feminine, carrying every drowned story within it. In that endless tide, scripture begins again.

Moreover, perhaps that is the truest miracle of In the Shadow of the Ark: it makes you feel the holiness of the body, the seduction of belief, and the tragedy of exclusion all at once. It lets myth sweat, bleed, and whisper. It takes the ark off its pedestal and leaves it gleaming, half-submerged, among the ruins of language.

A book like this does not save you; it baptizes you in uncertainty. You emerge changed, breathless, tasting both salt and grace.

Give it a try, if you choose to.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty funny (and telling) that looking through the reviews of this, almost all of them are by women. Midrash-like chick lit? I suppose, but this book definitely has some depth. It sucked me in, and really interestingly delved into the "other people's shoes" dimension about what it was like for those "on the other side of the ark," so to speak, in the Noah's ark story. Raises some pretty salient and discomfiting questions about justice as the ark is being built, and pretty fascinating imaginings of how it must have been for animals to suddenly come pouring in from all over the place. Re Jana is a pretty interesting character, but like others' comments observed, she still feels a little distant as a narrator, as if there's a wall between you and her true self, but that doesn't seem too inaccurate for her personality. I would also agree that I didn't like the interpretation of Noah, but that's just sour grapes and not really relevant criticism.

What I didn't like (and you may be noticing a pattern here if you've read my other reviews) is how the last third of the book seems to devolve into one sexcapade after another because presumably there's just not enough going on with the ark closing up and afterwards to keep us viably entertained? I think this raises some interesting racial questions but doesn't really deal with them (slaveholders justified having slaves based on an interpretation of Ham's descendants being cursed with a mark--blackness--and it seems like Re Jana is at very least not white). Left a sour taste in my mouth because of the sordidness towards the end, but an engaging read.

[Mark Groenen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like mythological tales and I like new and/or other interpretations (or deconstructions) of these myths. Noah’s tale is one I’ve always found very interesting, and Provoost weaves an interesting story around it. I like how the outsider’s perspective is written through Re Jana, who does not worship the Unnamed God. It allows for the readers to see the building of the Arc as a project cooked up by a madman, an impossible task that makes no sense. In a way I enjoyed the way Provoost makes the whole process feel like an almost never ending task, how time passes and how monotonous it all becomes - however, this does mean the book tends to drag a bit as a result...

The character of Noah is absent for a big part of the story, speaking mostly through his sons. This cloaks him in an air of mystery, leaving his motives vague and his intentions even vaguer. This allows for surprises in a tale that, for obvious reasons, shouldn’t be all that surprising in the end.

The novel is a depressing tale, and while while some reviews about the book complain about this: how else could you describe a tale in which 99,99% of all people die?

I enjoyed this book a lot.

[The Idle Woman · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I saw this novel tucked away in a local charity shop, I pounced immediately. How could I resist a story about the Ark so soon after ferreting deep into the history of its legend? Originally published in Dutch in 2001 (the author is Flemish), it has been translated into English by John Nieuwenhuizen and takes us into a strange and foreign world of fishermen and nomads, boat-builders and prophets. And, at the heart of the tale, is the rumour of a great boat being built in the middle of a desert by a crazy old man, and the young woman who travels with her family to answer the call for workers...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/03/30/i...

[Phair · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very weird book. Maybe having been translated from Dutch accounts for the 'foreign' feeling of the story. Did not like any of the characters. Noah & his family were all creepy-definitely seemed more pre biblical than Old Testament. It was all violent & dirty & the ark building & 'rescue' from the flood seemed more a punishment than a salvation. No green pastures & plenty at the end of the journey- just mud & flies and desolation and familial disintegration. A real downer. Ugh!

[Yaaresse · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm almost embarrassed to admit I bothered to finish this book. Clearly, there was nothing else to read, including shampoo bottles or fire extinguisher instructions.

The whole twisting around of the Noah story didn't bother me. I consider the "source material" for that complete fiction anyway, so one fiction piled onto another isn't the problem. It just started out bad and then took a left turn into weird and stayed there.

The whole thing was just a train wreck.

[Meg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that went downhill rather quickly.

About halfway through the book if you had asked me to rate it, I'd have given it a solid 3 stars. Maybe 4 stars, depending on how it went from there. I already had a list of people I was going to recommend this to, too. And then the Ark launches (or rather, floats, because no docks) and the story dissolves into the horror genre.

But let's start at the beginning. I picked up In the Shadow of the Ark hoping it would be a historical-fiction novel similar to Mary, Called Magdalene with an immersive world and culture. It's not. As far as descriptions go, it's more like looking through a blurry glass that is further streaked with rain. Can't make out much details. But neither is In the Shadow of the Ark overly religious. If anything, it's more philosophical . . . right up until it turns horror genre. *ahem* Moving on . . . .

One thing I absolutely adored, however, was the main character's mother, Enah. Enah is quadriplegic with muscle control over only one eye and some control over her breathing and vocal cords. Despite this horrendous disability, she is one the prominent characters of the book and is treated with an astounding amount of respect and love from her husband and daughter. When asked by other people why Enah is "kept alive," her daughter responds simply: "She is dear to us."

As someone who battles chronic pain and illness, this interaction touched me deeply. Indeed, the whole characterization and personality of Enah, the realness, was incredibly portrayed. When one of the Builder's sons starts a relationship with Enah's daughter, he asks her to treat him like a cripple, meaning treat him with the love, devotion, and care with which he has seen her treat her mother. It's beautiful.

I also enjoyed the inclusion of skin care, body oils and essential oils, and the art of cleansing the body and mind. Too bad Provoost never really delved into these topics. They were very peripheral. Important, but not robust.

Thus I really wanted to recommend this book to all sorts of people, to point to Enah and the love that she exemplifies. I just can't figure out how to tell them to only read the first half of the book. I raced through these pages. In the first half, eagerly. In the second half, with disbelieving horror. In the end, I had about 50 pages left in the book and I genuinely considered stopping. Abandoning it. 50 pages left! The end is right there!

It's hard to put into words what precisely went wrong in the last half. Yet it reminded me of watching a gruesome horror film in which the characters keep doing stupid and horrible things. So stupid and horrible that I was wondering why on Earth God wasn't smiting the Ark. Most the characters lost their sanity, as far as I can tell. At least one commits suicide (and I'm not really sure why). Copious animals die needlessly. There's rape, abuse, hallucinations, etc. Honestly, the "Drunkenness of Noah" (to reference the Michelangelo fresco) was the least demeaning thing to happen.

Seriously, what happened, Provoost?

PS: Did anyone else wonder why there is a fairly white woman portrayed on the cover when the main character, Re Jana, is black? Or heck, why is Noah and his crew all white? They are described as nomads in a desert. Shouldn't their melanin have kicked in by now to prevent them all dying of sun poisoning or skin cancer?

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

As many others have stated, I really liked the first third of the book. I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't even want to stop reading long enough to eat dinner. Unfortunately, everything went downhil at a breakneck pace throughout the rest of the book. I can't say that I really think about the motivation behind an author's writing choices, but this book is an exception. I don't understand why the author made such vile choices, motives, and personality traits on behalf of her characters.

There was all sorts of sex and violence in the final third of the book, so I didn't finish it. I simply didn't care what happened, and I don't read romance or erotica. There's a reason for that. I don't want to read sex scenes. Sexual scenarios in books of any genre aren't necessarily bad. It doesn't bother me to read a few sex scenes here and there (as long as they aren't the main plot or focus), but I can't stand reading detailed accounts of sexual activities and violence that I'd be revolted to encounter in reality. All the characters in this book ended up being vile, cruel, and extremely stupid excuses for human beings. I did not find the book insightful or 'clever.' The connection to Noah's Ark is tenuous, at best. The moral and ethical issues weren't explored in any depth. It never went beyond 'some poeple will be on the ark, but most of them will die and they'l be mad because they helped build it." Yeah. I couldn't possibly pick up such a glaringly obvious scenario without having it beaten into my eyeballs with violence and depravity at every turn. The treatment of animals bothered me too. They had pairs of animals, but that topic wasn't explored either. One confusing scene about a duck was the extent of ehtical debate there. I didn't catch even a hint of appreciation for preserving all those unique species from any of the vile, hateful characters.

[David Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the Shadow of the Ark by Anne Provoost translated by John Nieuwenhuizen (Arthur A. Levine Books 2001) (Fiction) (4095).

This novel has an intriguing premise: it tells the story of the epic tale dimly remembered by humanity of “The Great Flood” sent by The Creator during the Time of Legends. The deluge wiped humanity and its sinful nature from the face of the Earth, excepting only the few righteous passengers on the big boat. Most Westerners know this as the Biblical tale of Noah's Ark. In this telling, the author refers to the big boat’s mastermind as “The Builder,” but the Builder’s sons are Ham, Shem, and Japheth, which are the Christian Bible’s names for Noah’s sons.

I thought this sounded like a great tale to be fleshed out in novel form, and it still might be. However, In the Shadow of the Ark failed to live up to my expectations. In fact, this 368 page tale was one of the most disappointing exercises in creative writing that I have ever wasted my time reading. It was hardly even a story about a flood. In the author’s telling, it didn’t even start to rain until there were only a hundred pages or so left in the book!

Rarely do I discard a book that I’ve begun reading until I have finished it, but I was sorely tempted to toss this one aside when I realized that I didn’t care about any of the characters nor was I interested in any of the author’s subplots. If this book had been a television show, I would have changed the channel.

But I stuck with this book to the end. And now I understand why hardback copies of this book were so cheap on Amazon.

I purchased a HB copy in like-new condition from Amazon on 7/01/25 for $1.99.

My rating: 4/10, finished 10/23/25 (4095).

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

To compare Provoost's survivor of the flood to Diamante's Red Tent would do both a disservice. Yes, both are commentaries of a minor incident in the Old Testament; both have a female protagonist; and both are fictional (auto) biographical from the point of view of the protagonist. The difference is that Diamante writes in the voice of the "chosen" and the marginalized (i.e. woman) within the chosen. Provoost writes of the marginalized marginalized. Re Jana is black, of working class, and an emigrant. She has healing powers which serve her well. She is a strong surviving protagonist. She loves well and deeply. Her emotions are real and realistically expressed. Her relationship with Noah and his family reframe the righteousness of the selection criteria for survival. She sums the whole experience when she says, "The flood did not wipe out evil". Humon is only imperfectly perfect.

[GingerOrange · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can say with certainty I’ve never read a story like this.

I was interested to read the author’s take on the story of Noah’s ark. It was interesting to say the least; especially for the story to come from Re Jaba’s perspective. This book did raise some interesting thoughts in me too. So I appreciated that. I will say that the writing is not my style in the least. Everything felt brushed over and it was a real struggle to actually connect with the story because of that.

Overall, interesting but not my favourite book. The writing style just did not do it for me.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In the Shadow of the Ark,” Flemish author Anne Provoost reimagines the ancient tales of destruction of the world by a flood brought on by an unhappy god. While many will view this simply as a re-telling of the biblical tale of Noah and the Ark, I was reminded of a universal myth known across cultures and religions. The oldest known recording of such a flood is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, but there are hundreds of tales and Provoost has added another enjoyable and interesting perspective to that list.

First published in 2004, Provoost’s story (translated by John Nieuwenhuizen) is told by Re Jana, a dark-skinned girl from the marshlands who travels with her family of boatbuilders to the desert. They have heard rumors, and her father hopes to find work helping to build a very large boat.
Originally marketed as a YA novel, I found the underlying themes to be a soul-searching perspective of moral, ethical, and spiritual philosophical questions adults might might wish to critique.

The mythical, spiritual and ultimately imperfect humanity examined through an intimately human lens is powerful. The tale is confounding considering the desired outcome, from a biblical standpoint, was not exactly achieved. Still, against all odds Re Jana survives as an echo of innocence and love, a ray of hope, a totem of the exception: quite possible the most miraculous of all.

[El | libro.vermo]

Noah and his family were described as pale and their hair looked blond while everyone else was described as being dark-skinned and I’m pretending that’s commentary on how goofy it is that so many christians think Jesus & Pals are white.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

A "message of doom," from start to finish

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Junk.

[K Kolstad · Rating 1 out of 5]

This just got worse and worse.

[Karin Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty interesting. The viewpoint of the narrator, the emerging faith, the mistakes the characters make, add up to a riveting tale.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me think about the complexity of Noah’s mission. He merely a peripheral character in this story, which also raises questions about faith, justice, and family. Glad I read it.

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is hard to know what to say about this book. It drew me in but it was also disturbing. It made me think about things I had never considered before. It was a good read.

[Cathryn Karmondy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, hoped to like it but finished feeling like I wasted my time. Did prompt me to read through the Flood account in Genesis and some commentary from Genesis so not a total loss.

[Jo Donoghue · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a terrific take on this story. Thank you for all your research and love that came across your pages. I truly enjoyed this read and often think about it.

[Johnett · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Could round up. Not as powerful as others I’ve read in the sub genre but still an interesting perspective on an often untold side of the story.

[Padfoot · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine, not great though...

[Frederieke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heel goed concept, niet zo goed uitgewerkt.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this story set in the time of the great flood with Noah & his family. It was a very interesting read.