Sudbury native finds literary success in Spain

For the past decade and a half, Sudbury native Reza Emilio Juma has lived in Spain and then in Mexico, working as everything from a bartender to a olive oil importer to a professor.

But it was his experience living in a primitive mud hut on a hill in Oaxaca, Mexico that prompted the MacLeod Public School graduate to write his first book.

Juma said there had been a hurricane, and he was cut off from the rest of the community because of flooding. With nothing to do, he decided to put pen to paper.

“I didn't have any sort of idea as to what I wanted to write about, so I just started mixing ideas of my childhood with fantasies, fiction, and after a day of writing, I was like 'Oh my God, I've got a story here.'”

That was the genesis of his first novel, Mil Besos (A Thousand Kisses), published in the summer of 2014. It's a romance novel about a womanizer and dreamer who decides to travel the world.

“My audience is basically 90 per cent women,” Juma said.

Although Juma — whose parents still live in Sudbury — only learned Spanish as an adult, he'd been living in the language for so long, he ended up writing in Spanish instead of English.

“I couldn't do it in English,” he said. “In fact, I didn't realize I was writing in Spanish until after a day. I was like 'Oh, I guess it's in Spanish.'”

Mil Besos has had some success in Spain. Juma was presented with an award by the Andalusian Centre of Literature and Arts.

As well, in Cordoba it was selected to do a pairing with a wine from one of the oldest wineries in Spain, and was also exhibited in the official store of the Alhambra in Granada, the country's most widely-visited monument.

Juma's second novel, El Legado Del Principe De Cachemira (The Legacy of the Prince of Kashmir), was recently launched at a 700-year-old palace in Granada, Spain.

The budding author quit his job in Mexico to promote his book in Spain. “My life is kind of a bohemian life — just living out of my suitcase,” Juma said.

Also written in Spanish, this book is written from the perspective of a sheltered 10th-century Indian prince who decides to travel to Spain, then a centre of civilization.

“He learns a lot of things — about religion, love, betrayal, violence and wars —because at the time, Muslims and Christians were at each other,” Juma said.

Anyone in Sudbury who happens to speak Spanish and is interested in purchasing Juma's books is asked to email him at [email protected] to make arrangements.