“No,” said Zahra. She reached forward and touched Dunya’s hand with two cold fingers. “I am only here to say goodbye for now. As a moment of grace.”
“You were a good friend,” Dunya said.
Zahra smiled at her. “Remember that, when your time comes. And know, little sister, we will meet again.”
She vanished. “Peace go with you,” Dunya said to the empty air.
Perhaps it was not so empty. The vines stirred on their trellises. The wind picked up. Dunya knew it was time to go home.
Nothing deterred her on her way to the Palace. She took a good look at the city as she passed through it. She wished the djinni that she met a good hearth, and she waved to the mermaids that she saw in the canals. She gave money to beggars and thanked storytellers for their words. She led her horse to the stables, watered her and brushed her down. Unhurried, Dunya prepared herself, and when she was ready, she went to the Lotus Gardens.
There, the nursemaids waited with the two little princes—or rather, Sultan Almas and his little brother. Dunya played with them while the sun went down, and after a while Upalu joined her. Munir arrived, fresh from the border camp, when the last sunlight had disappeared.
Dunya held Almas on her lap and smiled up at the stars.
“What are you thinking?” Upalu asked her. Munir leaned in for the answer.
“I’m thinking of a story,” Dunya replied. Upalu raised an eyebrow, and Dunya added, “It’s an idea of a tale, nothing solid yet. But I need help to tell it properly, and happily.”
“I’m good at help,” Upalu said.
“Anything you need,” Munir added.
Dunya smiled at them. “It’s my story. And you’re going to share it with me.”
In the Kingdom of Al-Rayyan, the reign of Sultana Dunyazhade was an era of peace and learning. Dunyazhade lived and worked hard as a kind Sultana and a loving stepmother. As time went by, she grew famous not only for listening to all people, but for telling wonderful stories. She remained modest about her stories and her ability to tell them, always giving credit to a sister no one had met, whom she called Zahra-zhade.
Long after Dunyazhade passed away, the name Zahrazhade, warped by time into Scheherazade, clung to people’s lips and memories, and the stories lingered on the wind. In time, Scheherazade’s name and memory eclipsed Dunya’s as the sun outshines the moon. But perhaps Dunya would not have minded that.
From Within and Without: Inspirations and Influences
So, let me set the stage. A dorm room in Southern California. An instant-ramen-fueled senior with too much Shakespeare on the brain. That senior is me. I have a notebook wherein I hash out concepts that I hope will win me fame and fortune. One evening, I get an idea for a twisty take on the Arabian Nights. Now, I love the Arabian Nights, always have. But this particular ‘what if’ turns the whole story on its head, and it won’t let me go. I write out a scene in script-style, iambic pentameter, and I finish it in one sitting. That scene was the seed of what would become my novel, The Ninety-Ninth Bride, coming out in June.
When I wrote this scene, I was following a few influences—such as Shakespeare himself, hence the iambic pentameter—but I was particularly inspired by Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey. Mason’s book takes on a monumental task, transforming The Iliad and The Odyssey, and he doesn’t play it safe. Mason’s forty-something new imaginings include werewolves, golems, and terrible mundanities. And he makes it work. A big part of how it works is that he maintains the emotional through-line of the wanderer looking for a way home.
Scheherazade makes an odd bedfellow with Odysseus, so to speak. Scheherazade is bound to one place, the royal palace, trying to transform it from the inside out. Her imagination may wander all over the known world, but she herself is stuck.
Now, none of this went through my conscious mind as I reread what I’d scribbled. I just thought, Hey, this ain’t half-bad. And then I put it away and forgot about it for a few months. Maybe more like a couple of years. A chance remark while visiting with Internet friends in London alerted me that the Book Smugglers had an open call for subversive fairy tales.
Well, wait, I thought, I have a subversive take on the Arabian Nights.
I dug out the old notebook, transcribed the scene onto my computer, and then attacked the idea from one angle after another. I knew I wanted to address the tragedy of the scenario—all those women executed under the Sultan’s eye! And why? To establish that the Sultan is dangerous. To raise the stakes, you might say.
So I tried this narrative perspective, and it didn’t work, I took another angle, I tried that, I repeated over and over until I found one that gelled. With a narrator in hand, I could start wrestling the story itself.
Now you might remember, a couple years had elapsed between when I came up with that first scene and when I wrote the story proper. I’d had another feminist awakening, I’d lived and worked abroad, and I’d discovered the works of Catherynne M. Valente, particularly The Orphan’s Tales. Like Mason, Valente works with existing myths and transforms them in exciting ways to furnish her stories. In between spectacular language and labyrinthine storytelling, this particular story’s emotional through line is of the orphan looking for a family. Her book had a profound effect on me, and I was eager to try out what I had learned in a short story form.
So it was with a little less iambic pentameter, an out-there premise, and perhaps a little more imitation than was really flattering, that I wrote a short story titled The Ninety-Ninth Bride and submitted it. The Book Smugglers accepted and published it, to my great delight.
Then, some time later, the Book Smugglers asked me to turn The Ninety-Ninth Bride into a novel. I was happy to take on the challenge—I had a few good ideas. But I was something of a different person. Between when I published the short story and when I started the novel, I’d had a really bad year. A year of personal crises. A year that opened my eyes to just how much I had changed from that callow, optimistic college senior. So it was in the wake of this year that I approached turning The Ninety-Ninth Bride from a short story into a novel. I was in a pit and it was time to start climbing out.
My influences in writing this novel were many. Hayao Miyazaki’s iteration of Sophie Hatter, in “Howl’s Moving Castle,” inspired me with a heroine whose strength is all interior—my Dunya owes a great deal to her. From JK Rowling I tried to pick up the art of laying clues so that the ending is surprising yet satisfying. Tamora Pierce, a queen of Young Adult, was my guide for trying to make a real, tangible world that my heroine can grow in. And as I mentioned above, Mason and Valente inspired me with courage—commit to that wild choice, commit and see what you can make of it.
And what did I make of it? Well, looking back…
I’d say the emotional through line here is of the meek, not inheriting the earth, but coming into her strength.
My mom says that in a dream, every character is actually you. I won’t say that’s strictly true of novels, but when I look at my work there are aspects I recognize in myself. The Sultan, source of all the misery and miserable himself, pacing away in a shrinking circle of anger. Intuitive Zahra, my Scheherazade analogue, who only shares truths when it’s convenient for her, whose wisdom needs a good student.
And yes, how I recognize my original characters. Upalu, a djinn made of fire whose broken heart threatens to burn her up. Munir, a young soldier with everything in the world but courage. And hurrying between them all is the protagonist, Dunya, always overwhelmed but doing her best and trying to understand, to pull the city out of its threatening stagnation.
Hmm, college senior me would be shocked. She was working on a thesis about the separation of the author and the work. Whoops...
And of course, I did not write this story in a vacuum. I was driven to create the representation of Arabs as people that I don’t see enough of in media. Furthermore, editing the novel was dif
ficult because I couldn’t stop comparing the tyrannical Sultan that I created to 45, whom I loathe.
On the positive side, I wanted to create a book worthy of the team that helped bring it together—particularly, worthy of the efforts of my editors, and worthy of the beautiful cover created by Reiko Murakami. We writers like to think of ourselves as hermits on mountaintops, but it’s good to have a community to lean on. I’m proud to write for the Book Smugglers, and proud to write in the tradition of fairy tale retellings.
I’m very proud to put out my first novel, in fact. Grateful to that cheeky little college senior who wrote down a good idea.
Let me set another stage. You are putting your feet up for a good read, for a new take on an old story. In your hands is an ebook or a print book with a slate blue cover, showing an Arab girl looking to the right. You are taking a chance. And I’m grateful for that.
About the Author
Catherine Faris King is a Lebanese-Irish-American writer. She would like to thank her parents and friends for their endless support. This is her first book.
About the Artist
Reiko Murakami is a U.S. based fantasy illustrator and concept artist who works in digital painting. She was born in Japan and grew up in Virginia after her family moved to the U.S. when she was 15. While studying at Rhode Island School of Design, she started to work in the video game industry. After graduation she spent a few years working as a full time concept artist, then in 2012 she decided to move to Tokyo, where her family is originally based, to expand her experience in the digital art and illustration industry. After spending a few years as a freelance fantasy illustrator working with various clients from both countries, she decided to move back to the U.S. and now she has settled down in Boston. She is currently working as a full time video game artist at a local video game company while spending some time for personal art projects and freelance illustration jobs.
Book Smugglers Publishing
The Novella Initiative
Keeper of the Dawn by Dianna Gunn (4/18/2017)
Reenu-You by Michele Tracy Berger (5/2/2017)
Bearly A Lady by Cassandra Khaw (5/16/2017)
Temporary Duty Assignment by A.E. Ash (5/30/2017)
Girl Reporter by Tansy Rayner Roberts (12/19/2017)
Fall 2016
Hurricane Heels: A New Series by Isabel Yap
A Convergence of Fairy Tales by Octavia Cade
Summer 2016
The Indigo Mantis by E. Catherine Tobler (5/24/2016)
Kid Dark Against The Machine by Tansy Rayner Roberts (6/14/2016)
How To Piss Off a Failed Super-Soldier by John Chu (7/12/2016)
Superior by Jessica Lack (8/16/2016)
The Life and Times of Angel Evans by Meredith Debonnaire (9/13/2016)
Novels
The Extrahuman Union Series by Susan Jane Bigelow
Broken (3/22/2016)
Sky Ranger (6/28/2016)
The Spark (8/23/2016)
Extrahumans (10/18/2016)
Winter 2015
The Case of the Little Bloody Slipper by Carlie St. George (11/3/015)
The Price You Pay is Red by Carlie St. George (11/24/2015)
The Long and Silent Ever After by Carlie St. George (12/15/2015)
For more on the Spindle City Mysteries, visit booksmugglerspub.com/category/spindle-city-mysteries.
Fall 2015
Fighting Demons by S.L. Huang (9/22/2015)
The Bridegroom by Amelia Mangan (10/27/2015)
Spring 2015
The Merger by Sunil Patel (6/23/2015)
Luminous by A.E. Ash (7/21/2015)
The Vishakanya's Choice by Roshani Chokshi (8/25/2015)
Application for the Delegation of First Contact: Questionnaire, Part B by Kathrin Köhler (5/26/2015)
For other original tales of first contact, visit http://booksmugglerspub.com/category/first-contact/.
Fall 2014
Hunting Monsters by S.L. Huang (10/7/2014)
In Her Head, In Her Eyes by Yukimi Ogawa (10/21/2014)
Mrs. Yaga by Michal Wojcik (11/4/2014)
The Mussel Eater by Octavia Cade (11/18/2014)
The Astronomer Who Met the North Wind by Kate Hall (12/2/2014)
The Ninety-Ninth Bride by Catherine F. King (12/16/2014)
For other original & subversive fairy tales, visit booksmugglerspub.com/category/fairy-tales.
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The Ninety-Ninth Bride Page 21