When I first started as a writer, I just let my imagination flow wherever it wanted to go. So, along the way, ten books were published in an eclectic array of genres, three of which were non-fiction. But recently, my views have changed. When I look down today’s Sunday Times best-seller lists, nothing really catches my eye as being worthy. A motley collection of crime/thriller/celebrity books, here today, gone tomorrow. As an avid world news follower, I’ve long wanted some of the wrongs to be tackled. As far as racism is concerned, and in particular anti-semitism, I waited and waited for someone to write about it. Of course there’ve been many academic tomes written by excellent authors such as Schama, Montefiore and the like. But what was needed was a novel aimed at ordinary people, something with a powerful message wrapped up in an engrossing story. So, I decided to write it myself. The Meleke Stone is now born, via a traumatic publishing journey, but now available via the icon on the right. I simply want racism to stop for good. Below is a copy of the novel’s Author Note, giving further justification for its genesis.
“..Author’s Note
Someone once said to me that truth often takes a back seat for those with subliminal, obsessional, lifelong-held racist views. It seemed to me, therefore, that in these days of free access to social media, which unfortunately gives a voice to many ill-educated, unsubstantiated, racist viewpoints, it was time to put the record straight.
So, the foregoing story is the culmination of a project I have been working towards all my life. I wanted to write an enthralling, engrossing narrative but with a serious moral behind it. By bringing together two fictitious characters from different ethnicities, one Jewish, the other an Egyptian Muslim - conflating their alternative personal histories and previous mindsets about each other – the story leads them to a lifelong friendship.
I built on the knowledge I learned at first hand when living in Toulouse, France, over a twelve year period. In so doing I was able to give my characters a shared, common background in being expelled from their original homelands and struggling to establish a new life in a different country.
By researching the true, peer-reviewed, archaeological evidence which substantiates the rights of the Jewish people to return to the land of Israel – from whence they’ve been ousted countless times by wave after wave of different tribes over four thousand years - I’ve attempted to alleviate much heartache in the world and draw on man’s similarities rather than perceived differences.
I hope I’ve succeeded, not for any personal reasons, but on behalf of all the Jewish people in the world who are crying out for justice and to put a stop to all the passed-down inaccuracies and hurtful personal parodies that continue to this day. All the Jewish people have ever wanted is to live in peace in their own, tiny piece of land.
That’s why I wrote the poem at the novel’s conclusion. Its message is important enough to repeat again here. That was my single, most urgent rationale for writing this book. Let’s hope it does some good in the world so that, whatever colour, faith or creed people espouse, we can all live in peace and brotherhood with each other.
At early morn’ I had a dream
that man would cease his futile scheme
Blazing battles, suicide missions
Murder, hatred, crazed seditions
Plumb the depths, re-appraise
Be none so blind, none so fazed
Halt the fight, tribe v tribe
Suffused with hate and diatribe
But see with eyes afresh from birth
We’re all one tribe – that of Earth
Olga Swan
2021……”
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