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Project Type: creative nonfiction

The silent gender gap in modern homes

TIMES OF INDIA: The adopted daughter I wanted

Korea, in threes “Swimming is probably the most antisocial sport, and that’s exactly why I enjoy it.” Unexpectedly came upon an exhibit of @werner_bronkhorst in Seoul @groundseesaw and started imagining sinister backstories for each of these swimmers. I stood there delightfully creating fiction in silence, and thought about how the best ideas come to me while I’m underwater, how writing is also an antisocial sport, and how my need for both activities must come precisely from that solitude. Meanwhile, Zaya was face down on the gallery floor shooing off strangers and insisting all tiles except the blue were lava. Of all the questions I’ve been asked on tour, this one was most unexpected, and revealed to me just what I needed to hear. Thank you @imamaafzal for asking it. What debut authors don’t want to say, but thankfully many have, is that the first year after publication is hard. I felt elated and anxious; fulfilled and yet in constant anticipation; proud for beating the odds and guilty for not being perpetually grateful. For an introvert, I talked a hell of a lot this year. In public. About the book, yes, but also about myself. Entering any stage is a step towards scrutiny. An honour that requires a vulnerability, which has a weight. To lighten that weight, and to lighten up, I spent a few days amidst the desert, the sea, the mangroves, the kingfishers, the crows, the turtles, the gazelles - returning to a pace and place that seemed to relish in its quiet, quite like I do. This is so much of why I wrote my novel. To speak to the soul of the story with strangers; to represent the diaspora experience of the UAE in literature; to shatter the assumptions made about migrants, about women, about the spaces inside of us and out. What a bloody honour to do so in the company of these creative minds: fellow authors, readers, poets, adventurers and childhood friends @emirateslitfest This is the shortest answer I had to that big question on writing motherhood. This is my way of saying I’m a writer, a conservationist, a minimalist, and an adoptive parent who is trying to consume less and create more (is there a bigger contradiction to that than being on social media?!) All credit for this post goes to @karishma31 who tells me the hard truths in straightforward sentences, and who once saved my life by doing so. I didn’t start the novel thinking about how I’d write female characters. It was only after creating them that I understood how much they needed me to strip them of the assumptions society had imposed, even in a fictional world.
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