Nura and the Immortal Palace

Dear Reader,

What scares you? Is it the shadows that flicker in the corners of your vision? The creak of the floorboards? The whispers from under your bed? For some kids, fear is the supernatural, restricted to spooky bedtime stories and campfire tales. Yet for our protagonist, Nura, fear is her reality.

As a child, I was blessed with a loving family, a roof over my head, and access to education that could hone my mind. But once I realized not every kid shared the same privileges, I started to wonder: what would an adventure from their perspective look like? That idea is at the heart of Nura and the Immortal Palace – a story about forgotten children, never seen and never represented, never the protagonists of their own stories. 

Nura works as a mica miner, navigating dangerous tunnels to excavate lucrative minerals. As her mother works in a sweatshop and she has three younger siblings to feed, Nura hopes to find the fabled treasure buried deep within the mines. But when a terrible accident traps her best friend underground, she digs deeper to find him. Instead, she finds herself within an enchanting realm of pink seas and purple skies – the realm of jinn. Growing up, my mother used to tell me tales of invisible creatures, born of fire and mischief, who’d try to lead me astray if I got too lazy. Some with backwards feet or grizzly, towering horns; others that could fly and even disguise themselves as humans. They were jinn – creepier than the boogeyman and spookier than ghosts, because not all jinn necessarily have a purpose. Some just love to trick and swindle. 

The story embodies this clash between humans and jinn. What is a jinn, if not childish? And what is a human, if not chaotic? Beginning at two opposite ends, Nura and the jinn soon discover a grey in-between where their values, emotions and motives can be strikingly similar. Beyond the magical, there is a sense of looming uncertainty. The sparkling dirt mentioned in this book, mica, is a real mineral, harvested globally in places like India, Madagascar and Brazil. In many cases, the method of excavating the mineral is illegal, deadly, and more often than not the workers hired for the job are children – some as young as five years old. Children younger than Nura.

This is a story about clutching on to hope despite your situation, about allowing yourself to yearn for more than just the food on your plate or nice clothes to wear – it’s about dreaming big. Because dreaming big shouldn’t feel like a luxury.

Yours, M.T. Khan