Author Spotlight: “The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue” by Zoulfa Katouh
Zoulfa Katouh chose four epigraphs to open her sophomore novel, The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue. A memory for Deah, Yusor, and Razan. Thankfulness for Min Yoongi — also known as SUGA — from BTS. A heart full of gratitude for her readers’ support. A hadith from the Qur’an.
They cover quite the range. Yet, somehow they all make sense to the book, which arrives on June 2. Katouh’s new novel follows a Syrian American hijabi girl named Jihad, who is still reeling from her mother’s death one year ago. It doesn’t help that her “blessing,” the ability to see colors beyond the average human being, has faded to gray.
Katouh uses her new story, set in New York City at a fictional private high school named Braxton Academy, to tackle grief, Islamophobia, and how art can spark necessary conversations. The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue centers a Muslim American experience, but as Katouh told us, it’s a book for everyone.
EnVi spoke with the Syrian Canadian author over Zoom about what it was like to spend three months in Jihad’s shoes and the epilogue she just had to write.
This Is Dedicated To You
“I was very intentional about my dedications,” Katouh started, her Zoom background a picture of BTS RM’s studio. “I want the dedication[s] to not just reflect the book but also encompass the readers that this book is for.”
With a Muslim American as the main character, the most obvious audience are Muslim Americans or other Muslims like Katouh. But she wants The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue to resonate far beyond this specific community and not just be “pigeonholed” into a Muslim-only story. “This is a book about the struggles of being a Muslim in America or in Europe, in general, but that does not mean this book is only for these people who are suffering,” she told EnVi. “It is for everyone.”
After reading the novel twice — yes, twice — I would agree. The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue is for Muslim hijabi readers of the diaspora like Jihad; it’s for kind and brave readers who always have a genuine smile at the ready like Jamie; it’s for people who understand their privilege and use it to help others like some students at Braxton.
Katouh was influenced by so many people and creatives, which shows in her epigraphs. Her first dedication goes out to three young Muslim students who were murdered in their homes in Chapel Hill, North Carolina over 10 years ago. “They did so much good in the community and to have these young lives be taken away so violently, I was angry and I was upset,” Katouh explained, as her voice grew stronger with each word. “I think about them every [day].”
“I wanted to honor them in my dedication,” the author added. “Even though they have passed on, we still remember them.”
Inspiration From the Little Details
Other inspirations came in the form of artists like BTS’ rapper and producer SUGA — “He knows how to get to the crux of a person’s pain in their soul,” she said — and her faith as a Muslim. The hadith, or a saying from the Prophet Muhammad, Katouh explained, was also a much-needed dedication. “Anyone who has done you good,” she said, “You have to thank them…Thanking people [is] like thanking God.”
Katouh’s family is from Syria, although she grew up in Canada and studied in the United Arab Emirates. Yet, Syria runs deep in her memory and her bones. “I have a very deep belief that the Mediterranean Sea knows me, like he knows me personally; we know each other,” she told EnVi.
A poem about Syria, memory, love, and loss comes after the epigraphs. “I really wanted to do a poem at the beginning,” said Katouh, citing inspiration from The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar. But it didn’t go quite to plan. At first, the author wrote too much (relatable), making it difficult to fit all the words inside an outline of Syria.
Luckily, her publisher didn’t mind. “It’s so beautiful as it is; let’s just keep it,” Katouh said, paraphrasing what her publisher told her.
The Ocean Is My World
It took Katouh three months to draft her sophomore novel. The story then went through edits for another year after that. But unlike her debut novel, As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow, Katouh’s second book was contracted by her publisher. As a result, she needed to give them a synopsis and sample pages to sell the story on proposal.
This process was something new for Katouh, who is a self-described “pantser” (compared to a plotter). “I don’t like when the element of surprise is taken away from me,” she said. “Then I get bored with my writing.” Katouh still ended up pants-ing Ocean — or “structured chaos,” in her words — despite already knowing the big plot points and the end. “There is always room to discover new things when you [are] writing,” Katouh mused.
Like Jihad, Ocean’s main character, for example. “She came to me a very long time ago,” Katouh remembered. Around 2020 or 2021, Katouh tweeted on then-Twitter about wanting a book with a character named “Jihad.” “It was always going to be a book that I wrote later, [but] I never thought of it as my second book,” she said honestly.
Her main character from Lemons — Salama — is beloved within the online book community. However, Katouh knew she didn’t want the narrators of book one and book two to be the same person. She explained further, saying, “I already wrote a very sad girl — Salama — who was very sad, very traumatized.” As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow takes place in Syria during the war. Salama is a doctor in a hospital — and a country — that’s barely hanging on.
Jihad’s reality is completely different.
“At the beginning, [Jihad] was very much defeated, and I wanted her to be realistic in the way that if we were to encounter negative interactions, how do you [react]?” Katouh said. Maybe you belatedly think about the things you should’ve said or done after someone says a nasty thing to you. Maybe you get so angry that you react without thinking twice. Or maybe you get so emotionally beaten down that you just want to get out with a sliver of pride left.
Katouh noted how readers will probably have divided opinions over whether Jihad “stands up” for herself. “It really, I think, translates to your experiences with racism and with negative people around you,” she added. There may be a difference depending on where the reader lives, where they were raised, and the culture and heritage reflected in those spaces.
“For my friends who have lived in the west or in America, they’re like this hits home,” Katouh shared. “They were crying; they were like, they were seen to their core.”
Reactions to Salama were generally the same. “Nobody is like, oh why did she act like that? Because so few of us have been in war zones,” the author explained. “Hopefully that isn’t an experience we have, but you can never judge what Salama does because you can’t be in her shoes.” Katouh continued, “But with someone like Jihad, whose experiences are something either we went through or we know people have [gone] through, that’s when different ideas come in.”
A Balm For the Pain
Jihad is not having a good time at her new school, Braxton Academy. Her one source of relief? Jamie Murphy, Jihad’s biracial Vietnamese American classmate who grew up on a farm with his Vietnamese grandmother.
“I always like to write my love interests as the counterpart to the pain that is happening,” Katouh shared with EnVi. Jamie is kind, not just nice (yes, there is a difference). Specifically, he’s kind to Jihad when all she receives are stares, glares, and more at school.
But writing Jamie’s character posed its own challenges. “It was very difficult to write Jamie sometimes, honestly, because I didn’t want him to come off as white savior,” Katouh said honestly. Through trial and error — and help from her editor, Ruqayyah Daud — Katouh found a balance. “I wanted [Jamie] to be an example for people who have more privilege that you can help,” she added. “I really wanted to show good, genuine people with no hidden agenda[s] other than they just really wanted to help.”
Jamie and Jihad’s relationship toes the line between friendship and something more. But part of the reason why their bond is so strong is their mutual connection to Islam. Jihad was born into a Muslim family. Meanwhile, Jamie grew up with a Buddhist grandmother. From the very first day Jihad meets him at Braxton, she understands he has a different — but curious — relationship with the religion she grew up with. “This is something that they have to actively choose to look into, especially for a religion that has been vilified in the last 30, 40, 50 years,” added Katouh.
Researching to build Jamie’s character, in turn, gave her a “new perspective towards my own religion.” She read other points of view on Islam, both from Muslim writers and non-Muslim writers to inform this element of Ocean. Katouh also emphasized, “You, yourself have to make the effort to understand your religion; you have to understand…the rules and regulations and how you exist within it. You have to know your history.”
To Be a Good Person
Syria appears in the beginning of Ocean, and she appears in the end. When Katouh originally wrote the novel’s ending, Syria was not yet free. That first ending featured Jihad, her father, and a road trip.
But in December 2024, Syria was free. “I changed the epilogue into something that I felt was more in tune with the book’s themes,” Katouh told EnVi, keeping the details purposefully vague to avoid spoilers for future readers. But, “I cannot not write an epilogue that’s not in Syria, especially with Syria haunting the narrative,” the author revealed.
To wrap up our interview, I asked Katouh a personal question, one that Jamie and Jihad discuss within the pages of Ocean. What does being Muslim mean to you?
“Now I’m at a time of my life where I’m trying to understand my religion and how I exist within this world,” she answered. “For me, being Muslim means doing good. That’s what it means. I’m here to do good for the world; I’m here to help my fellow mankind; I’m here to work towards my afterlife because I believe in the afterlife.”
For Katouh, it’s about being a good person — a belief that she naturally wove into The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue and its characters. As Katouh said, “I want to leave a mark as good as it can be for the rest of the people that are coming after me or for the people around me.”
Want to read more interviews with your favorite authors? Check out our interview with Adeline Kon and their graphic novel Just Between Us!
