The Kingdom Over the Sea by Zohra Nabi
Published in May, The Kingdom over the Sea, was Waterstones Children’s Book of the Month. We are excited to share a guest blog from author, Zohra Nabi about her debut book.
I love reading authors’ first books. There’s something electric about a debut novel, not written to a deadline, or with a clear idea of what lies ahead for the work. Some are bursting with the special interests of the author; some are full of thoughts and ideas hoarded over years; in some you can see the books that influenced the author running through like golden thread.
I think – or hope – this is true of my first book: The Kingdom Over the Sea. It’s the story of Yara Sulimayah, a girl who grew up in our world who, after her mother’s death, discovers a letter telling her to return to the city she was born in – a city which can’t be found on any map – and seek out a sorceress. What follows is an adventure over the sea to a land of forbidden magic and scheming alchemists, and a journey to discover the secrets of her past.
So many things that I love found their way into The Kingdom Over the Sea. The city Yara returns to is inspired by the cities of the golden age of the Islamic Empire, centres of scholarship and learning that I have been fascinated by since I was a teenager. It’s also full of topics and questions that I still love exploring – about the duty we have to care for each other, and how the movement of people affects culture and ideas and identity. The Kingdom Over the Sea wears its influences on its sleeve, too – you can see where I’ve tried to emulate the storytelling I admire, from Italo Calvino to Diana Wynne Jones to the tales of the One Thousand and One Nights. And there a lot of different versions of me packed into Kingdom. There are snippets of ideas I thought of when I first began writing seriously aged fourteen, and ideas that I teased out in university when I should have been revising for law exams. I began writing the book properly when I was twenty-one and finished when I was twenty-two, during the harsh winter lockdown where it felt like there was never going to be a future. When I read Kingdom back now, it’s like I’m watching myself become an author in real time.
With all that in mind, it’s extraordinarily nerve-wracking, publishing something as personal as a first novel. I’ve spent sleepless nights worrying about how the ideas in the book are presented, and how they’ll be received. But it’s also the most joyful thing ever, to send a story out into the world and have someone come back to say that they liked reading it, that something in it resonated with them, to talk about the characters you created as though they’re real people. (The favourite character of early readers seems to be Ajal, a sarcastic jinn who takes the form of a goat to look after Yara – although there’s a vocal minority with a penchant for the difficult, demanding sorceress Leyla Khatoun!)
It’s so wonderful too, working with brilliant editors who bring out the absolute best in your work. You move on from writing self-indulgently to thinking about your audience, and how to narrate to them. You realise that things don’t need to be said all at once and get a feeling for how the plot should unfold. You start meeting and learning from other more experienced authors. You get better, more practiced and accomplished and concise. But even with all that I’ve learnt as a debut author, there is absolutely nothing I would change now in The Kingdom Over the Sea. Lots of good things come with experience – but what shines through in a first book is the pure love of telling a story, discovered for the first time.
The Kingdom over the Sea by Zohra Nabi is out now with Simon & Schuster.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.