Interview with Zephaniah Sole, Author of A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands
Zephaniah Sole is the author of A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands (Black Spring Press, 2023).
His short fiction is published or forthcoming in various journals to include Passages North, Epiphany, and Gargoyle Magazine. He is a Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Author Fellow as
well as an alum of VONA and Tin House. Follow on Twitter @ZephaniahSole.
Zephaniah Sole’s novel, A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands, is out from Black Spring Press. He sat down to answer questions on his book, exploitation, and generational trauma.
Jacquelyn Scott: Congratulations on your release, A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands! What is this book about?
Zephaniah Sole: Alright Jacquelyn, here comes the elevator pitch!
My novel tells the tale of Ikigai Johnson, a burned-out FBI agent who uses her technical expertise to hide in a computer forensics laboratory so she can refocus her life on raising her eleven-year-old daughter, Junior. But when a harrowing international child sex tourism case crosses her desk, Ikigai is forced into action. She promises Junior she’ll talk about the case when it’s concluded, but how will she explain the horrors unearthed by such a case to a child - especially when Ikigai and Junior have their own shared demons to conquer?
Scott: How did you navigate those spaces of exploitation, inequality, and generational trauma in A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands, and why was that exploration important to you?
Sole: Scholars much smarter than I have written very long dissertations on such questions! But I’ll try my best to respond in a few sentences: For me, as a fiction writer, I focus on the character; I crawl inside their conscience and explore how they interact with others and the world around them.
Ikigai Johnson is a very interesting character, and I dare say, not one that’s really shown up in fiction before. She’s a half-Black, half-Japanese FBI agent who came of age in the Brooklyn of the 80s and early 90s. Her positionality in American society is highly unique and oftentimes almost self-contradictory. Then she’s, due to a physically and emotionally trying investigation, dropped into a whole different society - that of the Philippines - where she has a new positionality she now needs to learn and navigate in order to accomplish her mission.
A character like this carries a lot of history in her very bones. Everything she does is a story that needs to be teased apart - and those stories inevitably lead to things in this world - exploitation, inequality, and generational trauma - that we can only ignore for so long.
Scott: How do folk tales play a role in this book?
Sole: How does a woman who’s a survivor of so much generational conflict and war process such harrowing histories in a way that leaves room for play and joy? For Ikigai, folk tales, tall tales, and allegories are the means by which she processes the deeply complex dynamic she has with the world around her. She’s constantly absorbing tales and creating her own.
Scott: How did your identity inform the writing of A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands?
Sole: Let’s just say there are a few similarities between Ikigai and me. :)
Scott: The cover of A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands is gorgeous. How did you feel when you first saw it?
Sole: Oh - I cried tears of joy.
Scott: The title is also fantastic. Did you come up with the title on your own, or was there some workshopping involved?
Sole: There was quite a bit of workshopping between the publisher and me - and it was worth it. I think we came up with a title we’re all excited about and that, more importantly, will get the audience excited about this story too.
Scott: You once said, “My work often attempts to find language that can process unspeakable (and unwritable) historical trauma.” What do you do when there are no words?
Sole: Ha - good question. If you look at some of my work you’ll see I often make up words. Or I’ll write out things like “AAAARRRRRGH!!” A lot of that is influenced by my lifelong love of comic books, graphic novels, and comic strips. I love the way these mediums so fearlessly articulate the inarticulable.
Scott: Are you really an FBI agent?
Sole: I am! Though to be honest, these days I’m a Supervisory Special Agent - which means I ride a desk while the gals and guys on my squad do all the real work!
Scott: What are you currently reading or working on?
Sole: I just finished handwriting the first drafts of my next two novels - I’ll make public announcements about those soon.
As for reading, I tend to read multiple books at the same time that cross the categories of contemporary work, classic work, and work in other languages. So at the moment, I am deep into Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You; Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man; a translation (my Spanish is very slow) of Miguel Angel Asturias’ El Señor Presidente, and I just finished reading through Albert Camus’ L’etranger in the original French (which is mind-blowing, it’s a very different novel in its original language).
Scott: What is the best piece of writing advice you've received?
Sole: I received this directly during a VONA workshop from the great writer and mentor David Mura: He said, “Zeph, stop worrying about your themes. Just focus on telling a good story. Your themes will come out on their own.”
Scott: Any last words?
Sole: Yes - I’d like it to be known that I am not receiving a dime from the sale of A Crime in the Land of 7,000 Islands. I wrote it purely for the joy of writing, for the pain of seeing some of the things I saw working in the Philippines, and for the desire to bring some awareness to the public about a dark topic they often hear whispers about but rarely get an informed perspective on: that is, International Child Sex Tourism and Trafficking. I want people to read it and come away from the story a little bit more informed, and perhaps, yes, a little bit angry. But I’ve no desire whatsoever to personally profit from fictionalizing the pain that real people are going through.
From Black Spring Press:
A Crime In The Land of 7,000 Islands by Zephaniah Sole
A Crime In the Land of 7,000 Islands is a powerhouse crime thriller fused with folk tales and the influence of anime.
This psychological literary fiction tells the tale of Ikigai Johnson, a Special Agent working out of the FBI's Portland, Oregon field office, who pledges to bring justice to children abused by a monstrous American in the Philippines. Amidst an expertly accurate police procedural, Ikigai recounts her tale to her eleven-year-old daughter through fantastical allegory.
Her story exposes the damage that arises from exploitation, inequality, and generational trauma. Exploring the nuances of criminal justice, it enacts the battle between our courage and our submission to fear. It is an important call to act against evil.
Trigger warning: contains themes of crimes against minors.
Get your copy from Black Spring Press.
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