Welcome, Melvin Sterne:

Melvin Sterne

Way back in 2005, I had just completed the manuscript for my first novel and was also writing short fiction. One of the very first stories I sent out into the world was The Brother King, which I entered in the international (but US-based) Carve short story competition. You may imagine my delight when The Brother King was longlisted for the award. Although it did not proceed further, I was even more delighted when it was subsequently selected for publication in Carve-zine  (Volume 6, No. 5), September 1, 2005—and then for  The Best of Carve Magazine (2005), published March 2006.

The editor who presided over The Brother King’s selection was Melvin Sterne, and Melvin continued to encourage me to value my writing and “keep going” during the intervening period until Thornspell was published in 2008. We have remained in touch since while Melvin has pursued his academic career, and I will always be deeply appreciative of his early encouragement and support.

So I am delighted to have Melvin here today as a guest “…on Anything, Really,” in order to introduce his debut novel, Zara: Welcome, Melvin.

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Introducing Zara (Ink Brush Press 2012)

Zara tells the story of a young prostitute in Bombay, India, who, after having started a legitimate business to purchase her freedom, and being cheated in the process, resorts to blackmail to find help to claim her rightful earnings. When the cell phone with the incriminating photos is seized by a police commissioner, and he, in turn, is murdered and the phone stolen, Zara, a poor, illiterate Muslim woman, must team with a rich, literate, Hindu policewoman to solve the murder and retrieve the missing phone. This means, of course, setting aside some serious personal differences (both women have “issues”), and along the way, discovering much about themselves, their past, their weaknesses, and, ultimately, their strength.

I like the novel for three good reasons. I try, in the way that Graham Greene wrote, to touch on serious social issues, but in way that is both academic and entertaining. I’d like to think that it is a book that transcends genre in this way — that it is both intelligent in the subject it takes on, but a fun read, as well. Second, the book is based on many of my experiences and observations in Bombay — a fascinating world unto itself — where many of the ordinary rules of society that we, in the west, take for granted — just don’t apply. And, finally, Zara herself is based on a woman I met in Bombay, and her life story (save the fictionalized events that make up the novel) are absolutely true. She was sold into child labor at 6, and into prostitution at 20 or 21. 

Zara could be any one of millions of women in sexual slavery today. And yet, strange at is may seem, she never accepted the label of “victim.” She was strong in ways that were remarkable, yet touchingly vulnerable in other ways. She was very human, yet something more. What struck me most about her was her demonstration of faith and courage. Through no fault of her own, she could be killed in her home town for being a “sinner,” literally, a rape-victim. And, as a non-virgin, she would never marry or have a normal family life. But she chose to remain in a brothel because it was the only way she could earn enough money to set aside a dowry for her little sisters so that they would not have to undergo the same fate. I was struck by the image of “saint and sinner” side-by-side, and by Jesus’s words, “No one has greater love than this: That he should give his life in behalf of his friends.” Zara did that in real life, and from the day I met her, I felt her story deserved to be told. The only question was, How? It took me four years to write Zara through its many drafts, and even when “finished,” several more to polish it and find a publisher in these difficult times.

Melvin

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About the Author:

Melvin Sterne worked construction for 20+ years with the Boilermakers and the Ironworkers before returning to college to earn his BA, MA, and Ph.D. He has published more than two dozen short stories, poems, and essays in magazines of national and international circulation, with several winning awards. Zara is his first published novel, but in the past month he has had two other books accepted by two different publishers in the USA. He currently directs (and teaches in) the communications program at the S P Jain Center of Global Management, in Singapore. Some might also remember him as the founding editor of Carve Magazine, which he published for six years.

You can go to Melvin’s website, here.

Zara can be purchased through Ink Brush Press (http://www.inkbrushpress.com/) or at Amazon.com, here, or from your favorite local bookseller.*

It will also be out in Kindle format in the near future.

You can also check out the Zara website, here.

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*[Helen]: I suspect ‘only in North America’ for bricks and mortar outlets, but check “How to Order” here.