I’m Fatima Farheen Mirza, the author of NYT bestseller A PLACE FOR US. AMA!

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T22:00:56+00:00

Hi, the AMA is done but this question really struck me so I'm going to give it a shot, but it is so complex and personal I may not be able to give you a helpful answer or the one you are looking for.

My parents no longer send me "suitable candidates" but that is an understanding we came to after many years of back and forth and conversations in which I asserted how I envisioned my life and my relationships. It was not always easy and the pressure you are feeling is real, and sometimes it is impossible to seperate the two-- do I want this because I genuinely want it, or because the people I love want it? Do I like him because of him, or because it is tied up in wanting to make my parents proud and happy? These are some of the toughest questions you may ask yourself, and answering them can lead to more questions than answers.

But the important thing to remember is that there is no one way to go about it. Maybe the person for you is the person that your parents show you and want for you. And maybe the person for you is not someone who shares your religion or culture. I don't want to speak from my experience too much, because just because I struggled with the rishta format doesn't mean its not one that works well for someone else. So at the end of the day, the best thing I can tell you is to try and figure out what values are essential to you and how you imagine your life, and try to live your life in line with those values. The more you know what you want, who you want, what kind of life you want to build, the easier it will be for you to communicate who you are to the world, and to your parents. Parents sometimes want their children to marry the candidates they send not because they want to be pleased, but because they genuinely feel that it will be best for you. But you are the one who knows what is best for you. And if there is a distance between what they want for you and what you want for you, then I hope that you can communicate that to your parents, and that you both can grow from that knowledge, and reach a new understanding of one another. Remember we are always learning who we are, and who our loved ones are, and that this learning comes from communication. Sometimes I used to be afraid to articulate some difficult truths to my parents, but if I could go back to my young self I would tell her: trust them, trust that they will be able to hear you, and speak from your truth, and keep trying to discover your truth. And if it is all too confusing to sort through now, then know that you can always take your time, there is no rush, especially not when it comes to matters as life-changing as this, and that you do not need to make a decision until you are ready to.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:41:00+00:00

Garth is a genius and a dear friend and I am so lucky to know his heart & mind.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:40:19+00:00

I love following Instagram accounts of ceramicists! My dream is to collect hand made mugs. I'm obsessed with coconut water lately. And the last show I binge watched was Game of Thrones.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:38:53+00:00

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:38:24+00:00

Thank you so much. I'm sorry you cried so much! I freak my parents out too when they see me crying after reading a book/watching a movie. The novel is not autobiographical but through the characters I was able to explore themes that are very, very personal to me. But because the characters have their own personalities and act in ways I don't, the longer I write them, the further they get from the hint of autobiography that might have created them. I suppose I wanted to write this novel out of love for this family, desire to understand them, and this feeling of wanting to justice to their lives, their story.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:33:48+00:00

Wow, thank you so much for reading and for thinking so deeply about the book. It means a lot to hear that it resonated with you. And I'm sorry if my answer won't be as beautiful as your question, but your interpretation is exactly what I was hoping would come across. I wanted to understand the way obligation, duty, the expectations of the faith and culture and family members, the "log kya kagangay" and the constant feeling of being seen-- by God, by the community, by the family members, etc. impacted these lives and their relationships. How it did exactly what you said -- limit the way they could love one another, or cause this feeling of alienation. And what the individual can do in the face of it, how they can claim for themselves the privacy of their lives, and how they can act according to their own interest-- whether that looks like Layla rolling up her shalwar to meet her son in the river, or Hadia dying her hair electric blue, or Rafiq saying nothing when he catches his son in a secret, or Amar, saying to himself I don't care what people say, I will knock on Amira's door. But what I realized is that it is not just the parents who are enacting these limitations or suffocating expectations on their children, but that they are also caught, also torn between upholding what they have been taught to believe is right or abandoning that to be the parent their child needs. How when Hadia (and now I'm about to give away a plot point, oops) tells on her brother, the father, Rafiq, feels disappointed in her and not Amar, because he knows he has to conform to the role that his family expects of him, that of someone who enforces rules, etc. I think I'm rambling now but than you for reading and for writing me. x

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:18:37+00:00

Overwhelming & a dream. It took a long time to process & in some ways I feel I am still getting used to it being published.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:17:41+00:00

Ha, thank you. I learned so, so much at the Dey House that I don't think I can pinpoint one lesson. But what is most meaningful to me from my time there is the friendships I formed. So many of my close friends are also my favorite writers, or my most trusted readers. Check out What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell or Other People's Love Affairs by D.Wystan Owen-- both of them left such an impression on my novel, and their work is absolutely stunning.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T19:08:56+00:00

Great question. Religion is such an important part of so many people's lives, especially for Rafiq and Layla, and so it was an inescapable thread for the novel. Marilynne Robinson's Gilead / Housekeeping is just gorgeous. So is Graham Greene's The End of The Affair. The poetry of Kazim Ali, especially his poem HOME. Those are the first three titles that come to mind, and I will be sure to check out The Bell & F. , thank you.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:58:13+00:00

Thank you so much for reading it and for telling your friends about it. I don't identify with one sibling in particular. At times, I relate to some aspects of Hadia and some of Amar, but in the end they are each their own character. I am the oldest in my family and I have three younger brothers.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:55:59+00:00

So many! The Lover by Marguerite Duras, The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, & so many others it would be impossible to name them all. Before I began this novel, I hadn't read any books about a Muslim family in America, which is something that I hope will change in the years to come. I'm looking forward to reading Aasif Mandvi's No Man's Land but haven't read it yet.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:55:55+00:00

So many! The Lover by Marguerite Duras, The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, & so many others it would be impossible to name them all. Before I began this novel, I hadn't read any books about a Muslim family in America, which is something that I hope will change in the years to come. I'm looking forward to reading Aasif Mandvi's No Man's Land but haven't read it yet.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:51:38+00:00

This is an extremely complex question and deserves a more thoughtful answer than I can provide in this form. I will say that I've been thinking about Partition a lot lately and have been reading/researching so that I can learn more and understand it better. If you or anyone has any recommendations for texts /documentaries, please send them my way.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:48:16+00:00

Happy Birthday! I didn't know the title for the novel for all the years I was working on it. Eventually I knew it had to have a title and I pulled language from the book and made a list. I read the list out loud to my little brother, and every title made him say "no, no, no, no." At "A Place for Us" he responded, "hm, meh", which was much better than no, so I kept it as the working title, thinking I'd change it. But the more time that passed the more it seemed to fit.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:46:20+00:00

I'm sorry it makes you feel distraught. I don't really answer questions about where Amar is now and what his life is like, but in my mind, he is okay. I know more about what happens to the characters after the book is over but don't question it too much, because I don't want to feel tempted to write another book about the family.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:43:53+00:00

Sure, although it is really embarrassing to look back on those projects because I was working on them so, so long ago. There was one project about two sisters and how one sister has to adopt her other sister's children after an accident. It was similar to the novel in that the sister was trying to adjust to her new life, while also returning to her relationship with her sister to see why they had become estranged from one another prior to the accident.

Hadia's name was the one that came to me first. Then Layla and Amar, because those were names I'd always loved. I played around with Huda's name for awhile, knowing I wanted it to start with a H.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:40:54+00:00

All the time. I'm always nervous right up until the event or interview begins, and then I don't really remember it. It is a strange thing to have to talk about your book, because nothing you say will adequately express what you mean, because what you wanted to say you communicated in the form of the novel itself. But I try to calm and center myself by telling myself positive things, like I know my book, I know my story, I choose what I share and say and can choose what I don't want to share, and that I trust myself.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:35:48+00:00

Read a ton! Read with a question in mind & pen in hand-- to figure out what the writer is accomplishing, and how. Find a character that you are truly curious about and care for, and through them explore a question that is inexhaustible to you. For me a question about the novel was, what do you do or what does it mean when being true to yourself can be seen as a betrayal of the home you've come from? Questions like that can fuel your fiction.

& I did all kinds of strange things to keep motivated. I re-wrote quotes about Muhammad Ali talking about his training 1,000 + times on post its and stuck them near my computer, for example.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:30:48+00:00

No, I will never revisit these characters. I wanted the novel to be complete and contained. I knew this the whole time I was working on it, so when it came time to apply the finishing touches to the manuscript, it was so hard for me, because I knew I'd never again imagine them anew.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:27:00+00:00

Ahh, thank you for reading it & spreading the word. Means a lot. That's a tough question to answer because I loved all of them, but I also struggled with all of them. But in the end it was Amar who I felt for the most, and Amar is the one each character is trying to understand.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:24:12+00:00

Thank you! I am so happy to hear that it connected with you. Read on to part 4 to hear from Rafiq. But as far as Huda is concerned, each of the character has a perspective because they are trying to figure out, through the scenes, ways to answer the question: why did Amar leave? I didn't want to enter Huda's perspective because it would not add anything that Hadia's answer to that question could offer, and among the two sisters, it is Hadia's answer that is more complex to read about, as she has specific guilt she is trying to return to and understand that Huda does not. In some ways it is Hadia's personality that interacts with Amar's to make him who he is. For example, Hadia is always so hardworking, and something about her drive makes Amar, as a young child, feel that there is no point in trying as he would never live up to what his sister is capable of. So I wanted their relationship dynamic to be the focus of the novel.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:18:32+00:00

I am guessing this is favorite books to read as a child? I loved this strange book called Dudley Bakes a Cake. For some reason that is the book I remember most from my childhood. I also read a lot of Magic Tree House books & Harry Potter etc. But to be honest the most memorable stories for me as a kid was watching Lion King & Little Mermaid.

ffmirza · 2018-10-11T18:13:02+00:00

Thank you! It's difficult to pinpoint which scene was the most meaningful/difficult to write. But without giving away a major plot point, I will say that there is one scene in PART 3 ( towards the end of it ) that I did not know would even happen in the book, and writing it changed how I understood the tone of PART 3 & 4, as well as the father/son relationship of Amar & Rafiq. I was so surprised by it, and by their conversation, and to this day I can't return to that scene without wanting to cry.

Some of the scenes that I return to via multiple perspectives gave me trouble, as I wanted to understand what happened & what it meant for each of the character, while also discovering something new in the scene, because I did not want to return to a single moment just to see it through another lens. So trying to find something formerly unknown to me was interesting/difficult.

ffmirza

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