Today I am really excited to have a brand new author on the blog, Ayisha Malik. Ayish Malik's debut novel "Sofia Khan is Not Obliged" is an outstanding and funny read that I highly recommend and my review will be up within the next few days. Sofia Khan is Not Obliged is also the first title in a brand new imprint from Bonnier, called Twenty7, which only publishes work by debut novelist, first in ebook and later in paperback.
For many, I think, being a writer is something they’ve always wanted
to do because they’ve been reading and writing from a young age – I’m
firmly in that boat. It was always my passion. It’s a kind of warped
compulsion, where you love and hate putting pen to paper (or tapping at
that keyboard) in equal measure. A healthy relationship, I’d say. For
me, writing is a weird unravelling of my feelings and thoughts that are
then stitched together with words, phrases and sentences, which help to
create a sense of truth and understanding. I became an author because
I’m addicted to that process.
Sofia Khan is not Obliged
is the product of many failed attempts at completing a novel. Some
people talk about inspiration as if it’s this mythical thing and that
it’s the hard graft that really makes you a writer. I very much agree
with this, but I also think that the spark you get when an idea takes
hold not only brings you those highs but also drives you through the
lows. My main character, Sofia Khan, is that inspiration. She is a
single, Muslim, hijabi Londoner and the central voice for my novel. It’s
all her characteristics (the good and the not-so-good) that kept me
going. Writing her was sheer entertainment. After all, if your writing
doesn’t entertain you then you can be sure it won’t entertain your
reader (although that’s not to say your reader will be entertained, but
at least you’ve amused yourself for a while).
Writing a
novel is, I think, a verbal form of stamping your own feet for
attention. I felt like the media had hijacked Muslim identity and
vilified it, so I wanted to touch upon that in my writing, along with
the way Asian families hijack our lives with the constant question: when
will you get married? Creating a character like Sofia wasn’t just fun
but explores that very common feeling of being stuck in the middle – in a
constant flurry of having to explain why you wear a scarf, or why you
don’t want to marry your auntie’s friend’s brother’s son when he’s such a
nice boy – and a doctor too!
But I hope many people can
identify with Sofia’s feelings and problems – they are universal
because, at the end of it, they are human problems. (Although not
everyone will know what it’s like to have to find a place to pray in the
middle of a book launch. Obviously.)
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