AiW note: This year, Sunday 23rd April is World Book Night.
Running over the evening of the UNESCO International Day of the Book— whose theme this year is indigenous languages — World Book Night is a UK-sprung celebration of reading and books run by The Reading Agency (a UK charity), with a focus on reaching and inspiring people to become more regular, confident and enthusiastic readers. Books selected for the World Book Night list are being gifted through reading and books organisations — including to prisons, libraries, colleges, hospitals, care homes and homeless shelters — and there’s a host of related book-library-writers-and-reader-communities-loving events, also taking place in the UK.
Inspired, some of our AiW Eds want to share the book love (always, areweright?) and use the excuse to get involved – so we’ll be taking part in World Book Night as individuals – dedicating reading time in the #ReadingHour from 7-8pm on 23 April, reading for ourselves and with others; and with some of us joining the Road to Reading, a 10 week habit-forming pledge to read for 30 mins…
– And yes, OK, we hear you! – while we are and very well should be in a more regular reading groove by dint of our very nature and being, pledging to read for 30 mins every week for 10 weeks gives all sorts of readers a chance to make new space for thinking about their own reading, to develop, refine, switch up or get creative around their reading habits — how they read, what and when, what kinds of readers they/we/all want to be…
From the World Book Night 2023 book list, we have settled on Ayaan Mohamud’s You Think You Know Me, published in February this year. It is Ayaan’s first novel and it’s a YA fiction.
Told through the lens of a refugee, the story is informed by Ayaan’s personal experiences of Islamophobia as a young Somali growing up in North West London, as well as the haunting stories of others, while celebrating Somali culture and community.
Ayaan was compelled to write the story following the tragic deaths of Shukri Abdi, a 12-year-old Somali refugee, and Lee Rigby, a British Army soldier. Shining a light on the real-life stories behind the headlines, You Think You Know Me explores how the backlash from a crime affects an entire community and leads to a vicious cycle of violence.
And it’s a great read. On the eve of World Book Night 2023, Katie – an AiW Ed. – and Sara Osman Saeed – an AiW Guest – have skipped ahead and already had the pleasure of reading You Think You Know Me, with the extra bonus of speaking with Ayaan about her book and its writing in a World Book Night look-ahead Q&A, which we’re bringing you now – so there’s time to check it out and get settled in with your picks for #ReadingHour, 7-8pm tomorrow (Sunday April 23rd), whatever they may be… NB. The books on the list are UK based, but they’re not and need not be prescriptively so – we’re taking inspiration from the night and its aims – what would your curated World Book Night book list look like?
We’ll be running a review of Ayaan’s book on the site soon, and after World Book Night too – and as it’s our recommendation for #ReadingHour, if you’re a YA reader or no, there’ll be enough time before the review for it to be your World Book Night read: Sara and Katie would be delighted to have others join in the conversation and share your thoughts about it at that point. Let’s be in touch? Contact details are on our home page, or you can comment on the site here with any ideas or thoughts, on the book, the night, or anything else for that matter….
In the meantime, please find our Q&A with Ayaan Mohamud below – with Ayaan’s generous thoughts, about the inspiration for writing, editing and publishing her book, it being selected for World Book Night 2023, Somali heritage and language, culture and faith, and much more…
World Book Night 2023 will take place on 23 April, and you can get involved!
There are lots of way that you can celebrate World Book Night. Click the options below to find guidance for specific settings, or find out more about the following:
- Take part in the #ReadingHour from 7-8pm on 23 April and dedicate time to reading, alone or with others
- Kickstart your reading and join the Road to Reading. Pledge to read for 30 minutes every week and create a lasting regular reading habit.
- Download a free audiobook, whether you already listen to audiobooks or want to try for the first time
Q&A: You Think You Know Me (2023), by Ayaan Mohamud.
Asking the Qs: AiW Guest, Sara Osman Saeed and AiW Ed. Katie Reid, for Africa in Words.
Sara is a recent English graduate from King’s College London and currently works at its Student Union as a Sabbatical Officer; Katie is a perennially recovering academic and an editor, also a founding member and editor at Africa in Words.
Publication day! From Ayaan’s Twitter page.
Giving us the As: Ayaan Mohamud, author of You Think You Know Me, her debut YA novel, selected for the World Book Night book list 2023.
Ayaan wrote You Think You Know Me while studying as a medical student, during lockdown, and as part of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month – amazing! – NaNoWriMo began as a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days, beginning November 1st – inspired by her own experiences of Islamophobia and a desire to write about Somali culture.
The protagonist, or main character, of You Think You Know Me is Hanan, a young Somali Muslim woman, at sixth form in London at a prestigious school, who is studying for her medical exam to go to uni and fulfill her dream and, perhaps, her family’s expectations, to be a doctor.
Katie: Thank you, Ayaan, for your poised and warm book full of love and hope, family and friendships, of seeing things and people in new and fresh lights. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to everyone – I think it reaches beyond its target YA audience, as much as it lands there, too. It’s hard to imagine that this is your debut, your first.
Sara: Hello Ayaan. I loved the book you’ve written and the characters you’ve crafted. As a Somali woman born and raised in London – and even in a neighbourhood much like Hanan’s – I fell in love with her and her family and felt as if she could have been my own best friend back in school.
As someone who shares the identity of the main character of the novel, I feel a sense of anger and injustice at the subject.
When writing the book, how did you want your readers to feel or what did you want them to take out of it? What parts of the story writing process were enjoyable and what parts were painful or too close to home?
Ayaan: In writing an “issues” YA book around Islamophobia – exploring how it is experienced by the Muslim characters in the story and how it is perpetuated by their local community – I knew there was a fine balance to be struck.
On the one hand, I yearned to share the kind of representation I was starved of. A young hijab-donning Muslim woman, a person of faith who finds comfort in her religion and spirituality. Someone proud of their identity, not someone who shies away from it or identifies it as a source of grief and dissonance. In this way, I really dreamed that the book would allow young Muslim teens to feel seen and heard.
On the flip side, I felt another responsibility in depicting these characters – their faith, way of life, and culture – in as accessible a way as possible for those readers who don’t identify as Hanan and her family do.
Thankfully, balancing the two was not as difficult as I anticipated because the answer was, and always will be, authenticity. If you speak from a place of honesty, you will find very few people who aren’t drawn to truth.
Writing this book as a debut has been an educational experience. I found the deepest moments of joy were, for me, in understanding my intention before penning a single word and then getting to the end! Marking the beginning and conclusion of this project were milestones that I will always hold dear to my heart. The challenging parts were everything in between – particularly writing about the bullying and instance of hate crime that Hanan and her family suffer through.
Katie: What does the selection of your debut for World Book Night 2023 mean to you?
I am still struggling with the idea that the book will have an incredible reach thanks to World Book Night, that those who have restricted access to books and reading, in youth centres, care homes and hospitals, will be able to read Hanan’s story and follow her journey to finding her voice. That they may be inspired to interrogate the world around them, appreciate a faith and culture in a new light, or simply enjoy the story. It is a wonderful privilege and one that I am so proud of, given the themes of the book.
Katie: You have such a lovely author’s note at the end where you discuss how the book formed in you, why it was so important to write it and why you want it to be read. I think everyone should read that note – every aspiring writer especially, and especially YA writers who are YAs themselves! – it speaks so generously and directly straight to us; I was also really struck by the ways Hanan uses a gift she’s given of a lovely notebook to find her voice and speak back to the powers that have been dictating her sense of self, what she should and/or shouldn’t do.
So, some related questions: Could you also talk to us about your experience of writing the book when you did during lockdown – what was it like writing at that crazy time, and participating in NoNoWriMo? Did you have “the whole book in you” (whatever that might mean!), ready to come out in that timeframe? Did it feel like it was the right time? Or was it more juddery than that? What brought Hanan, her friends, her school, and her family to you?
Ayaan: Lockdown was an incredibly difficult period – one that…
