ICW: Ayaan Mohamud, author of You Think You Know Me

One of the best things about this job is you get to consume art and then talk to the artist about this thing they made that they love, it’s like the best things about the human experience right? And this week I got to do just that with Ayaan Mohamud about her debut novel You Think You Know Me, which was written during lockdown, and released on February 2nd nationwide. I loved this book - I learnt about elements of a culture I hadn’t known much about before, I laughed hard, I cried, it’s beautiful and I can’t recommend it enough. Details on where you can get your hands on a copy are at the end of the interview!

Image Credit: Oluwayemisi Oshodi

Brianna (TBP)
So a really brief summary of the book for people that obviously haven't read it yet, is it follows the eldest daughter of a family who are refugees in the UK, and are also Muslim refugees in the UK. And it kind of explores the idea of the visible consequences of being Muslim in the aftermath of when any Muslim commits any crime. That's kind of the general gist of it, right?

Ayaan
Yeah!

Brianna (TBP)
So I want to ask, and I know, this is like the worst question to ever get asked- what's your background? Because you presented this kind of experience of being a refugee so beautifully, I wondered if that's your background.

Ayaan
That's so nice of you to say and actually, yeah, no, it's not my background. And I found it really hard to write the refugee experience. So I'm born and raised in London. I only went back to Somalia a couple of years ago, actually a few months before I started writing the book. So that was like my first experience of ever going back home. So yeah, obviously with Hanan being a refugee, completely different to my own experience. But I think part of the reason why I was able to write about it was because I have extended family who've had to migrate because of the civil war there. I still have family there who suffered a lot because of the war. And so even though it's not something I've experienced firsthand, I feel like all of those, I've sort of internalised all of that. And it's trickled down into the story in a way that I hope, I hope feels authentic people who actually have had that experience.

Brianna (TBP)
Have you spoken to anyone that has had the experience? Have you had any feedback from them?

Ayaan
So in terms of, well, everything that I got from my family growing up was one part that influenced it, but in terms of people reading the book and seeing if that was sort of authentic, from their point of view, I don't really have many people of my family who are wanting or able to read this kind of a book. So actually, we, my editor, managed to find a sensitivity reader who worked with the Refugee Council. And they had a read of the book in sort of the earlier draft a few months ago, and they gave some feedback and they felt that it was really representative of a lot of the stories they had about people they came into contact with.

Brianna (TBP)
Oh, that's amazing

Ayaan
Yeah, that was really, that was really great to hear because obviously I don't want to write something that strikes the wrong chord or doesn't ring true for people. But yeah, I think that it does I hope.

Brianna (TBP)
Well, it definitely came across to me, I was convinced. I was like 'she must have lived this' because it's so rich and so raw. And it doesn't feel like a stereotype, which I think is perhaps the risk that you kind of come up against when you're writing something you haven't lived. But it doesn't feel like that at all.

Ayaan
Yeah, and I think you know, especially with my parents not being, because they weren't born in this country, they were born in Somalia. So you know, just seeing their experiences. And I think growing up as the child of immigrant parents, like you have to shoulder so much just because they don't really understand the country. And I mean, at first, they don't really fully understand the language properly the way you do, you know, being born in this country. So I think that as well was easier to sort of, yeah, that was I used that experience as well.

Brianna (TBP)
So how did that kind of influence - In the book, there's this little tiny sentence that really sat with me, which was when Hanan talks about how her parents had told her they were coming from Somalia to somewhere that was better that she would have a better life. But because of the way she was being treated in society, she kind of questioned how that could be, or would she have been better being back at home in Somalia? And I wondered, did you even though you were born and raised here, Have you come up against those feelings of like, was it worth it for them to come here?

Ayaan
Oh, that's yeah, that's a really interesting question. See, I told you I didn't get asked the same things. Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I think, maybe not so much for me, because I've never been anywhere but here. So I've never lived anywhere else. So I don't know. I have nothing to compare it to. But there are times I do really think about the, you know, my parents lives and sort of what would have happened if war hadn't broken out? Like what would my life have looked like if they hadn't moved here? Or you know, they hadn't started a family? So that's something I do think about a lot. And yeah, obviously, it is isolating in a way growing up here, because so much of my family is also back home. Like my parents, parents I've only met a few times. And yeah, it does. It does kind of feel like in a way you are a bit disconnected. But then you are you do feel so connected at the same time. It's a bit jarring sometimes the feeling.

Brianna (TBP)
I totally get that.

Ayaan
Like I feel like I came from there, but I haven't.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah, I totally get that because I'm the same, both my parents are immigrants as well. And it's so funny, like you talk how I talk when you say Somalia is back home, even though we're not from there. I do that as well with like where my parents are from, and it's like, isn't it so funny that we were never born there. We were born here. This is our birth country. But when we talk of home, it's not of here. It's such a funny thing.

Ayaan
That's so true. There's just something I don't know. There's just something like when I went back for the first time, it just felt like I had like arrived almost. I was just waiting for this moment. And it was so emotional for me. And I found it really difficult leaving. But you know, it was so amazing. And it you know, it felt like a homecoming. But it also felt like I'd been there all along. And so it wasn't, it wasn't a homecoming as well. Yeah, it was both of those things at the same time.

Brianna (TBP)
I have such a theory that like our DNA is so rooted in where it comes from, because when I went back to - so my mum's Irish, my dad's Nigerian, and when I went back to Ireland, the specific place in Ireland that I just felt like a total release - it was like a weight that I'd been carrying just disappeared. When my grandparents then did a DNA test, they're 100% Irish, but it's this specific area in Ireland where I felt that, is where they're closely tied to. And I was like, isn't that so? Insane? I didn't know that at that time. But it just felt so a sense of belonging that I'd never felt before.

Ayaan
Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. I don't know it just feels like a very spiritual like moment. Like you're just connected to something like so much greater than you understand it. Just yeah, it just... Yeah, absolutely. That makes so much sense.

Brianna (TBP)
So you’ve spoken a little bit about the refugee side of it, but you also in this book there is kind of, you go into knife crime and stuff like that. So I'm wondering, what was the research like for this book? Did you speak to victims of knife crime, maybe even people who had committed knife crime? What was that like?

Ayaan
So the knife crime yeah, that was, that initially wasn't in the earlier drafts of the book. This is gonna sound really wild, but in the first draft of the book, sort of Hanan was the one who was attacked and fighting for her life, it wasn't Hussein. And sort of the feedback from my agent was at the time, it would probably be better for the story if Hanan was observing all of this, and, you know, having Hussein be in that position instead? That was where - he'd already had his sort of storyline with, with the drugs and the gangs. But it was yeah. When I edited again, that where the stabbing storyline came into that. I think it was because I've grown up in an estate in London. And there's always been a police presence that I've grown up around. And it's never really felt abnormal. But I know, this is not how a lot of other people - I know a lot of other people don't have this kind of police presence in their lives. And there have been stabbings, unfortunately, in my area. Yeah, they've all been really horrible. And so I feel like I wrote from that experience being an observer. But I've not known anyone personally myself who's been through any knife crime, but I just sort of tried to absorb what I could online from reading stories and reading articles. And trying to put that into it, trying to weave that into the story and trying to - just trying to approach it sensitively, because it's obviously such a, it's such an important issue. It's such a big issue for cities like London,

Brianna (TBP)
Definitely.

Ayaan
And for young people as well.

Brianna (TBP)
And I feel like the way that it's done, kind of in the context of this story, it feels even more relevant in today's world. Because it does feel like we're kind of heading towards some sort of, big climactic event where, you know, the rise of the far right, and the rise of the like, kind of fascism and Islamophobia. And all of this is becoming such a huge issue. So frequent, so day in day out that attacks like what happens in this book are not unusual in, especially in a multicultural society like London. So how do you kind of want people to, or hope people will respond to that aspect of the story?

Ayaan
I think, yeah, the landscape of the country, I feel like it's been heading this way for a while, obviously, like with Brexit, and xenophobia, and there's just, it's just so much happening. And there's a lot of bad swimming around generally. And I, from my perspective, I just thought it was really important to write a book for young adults and teens, featuring, I think, a group that are misrepresented horribly in media and entertainment. And you'll hear a lot of people who say that they don't know any Muslims in their lives, they've never met a Muslim, they don't know anything about Islam. And in the book, obviously, there's Jessica, who has a terrible relationship with Hanan and who bullies her and discriminates against her. And a lot of what she's internalised are things that she's hearing from her parents. And, and you know, what society is telling her about how to view Muslims. So, for me, I just wanted to write something for kids, because they're growing up, they are absorbing so much of this world, and I thought it was really important to counteract the narratives they're hearing. Because if they don't have that balance, they grew up thinking one way, they grow up only seeing things one way. And I mean, that thinking is so dangerous, and already exists in so many parts of society, which is why you have like rampant Islamophobia, and it leads to this horrible cycle of like, hate crimes, and then just, it's just never ending. So, you know, I thought it was important to have that in young adult literature. Because these, these, you know, these young people are going to be, are going to become the adults of our society. And, you know, if they just turn around to their Muslim colleague in the future, and you know, they, they have some shared understanding, they have some, you know, some understanding about what Muslims are like, and Islam. I feel like, that's what I can really hope for just some understanding, I think.

Brianna (TBP)
Definitely. And I think, like, like you just said, I don't know any Muslims in my own life. But I feel like I really got a kind of understanding of how their culture and how the religion plays into culture, and how it's really, absolutely no different to how Christianity plays in so many cultures. It's just that we're not used to it.

Ayaan
Yeah, I think there's a lot of othering with Islam, I don't understand why because I have.. I have quite a few friends who are Christian, and they are like some of my closest friends and we understand each other so well, because so many of our principles are the same. You know, and our morals are the same and really is that not, isn't that what it all boils down to, like, do we all believe in the same thing, about life about how we should be as people? And you know, the answer is yes. And yeah, I think that similarity is like, you know, I just wanted to show Hanan as a regular teenager like, she's not. She's not... she's a Muslim yes. But she's, you know, that's one part of her identity. But it doesn't mean that she's completely foreign and like alien to you just because she believes in something different.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah and I think you've really presented that so well, you present it in such an easy to understand way. Because like you say, I think people perhaps see like a young Muslim woman with her hijab on and just think like, well, that's her whole identity then. And it's like no, it's absolutely no different to you seeing a young woman wearing a necklace with a cross on. You don't assume that that's her whole identity. It's just part of the puzzle that makes her who she is. And I think that's, like you say the thing that's kind of misunderstood, very much in Western society, and books like yours, I hope, I really hope people pick up read and at the end of it go actually, what is it that I'm so scared of? What is it that I'm so misunderstanding about?

Ayaan
Yeah, I yeah, I really hope so. I think, I think for so many people, the idea that someone like could be, you know, practising a faith is difficult for them to understand, because we live in such a secular society. And I think the representation of Muslims that I have seen, you know, has been great, but also, there's a spectrum of Muslim experiences, and there are people who do practice their faith. But there's always been this sort of association between, like religiosity and extremism that I've, that I've noticed growing up. And so someone like, wearing hijab or someone praying, or someone fasting, or like, you know, abstaining from alcohol, for religious reasons, those are all things that have been like associated with being an extreme Muslim, which is something that I like, wholeheartedly disagree with, because it's just someone following the basic tenets of their faith. But that's how society sort of skewed it. It's like, Oh, if you're, if you're just following your faith, like, on a basic level, what it looks like now is that you're just an extreme Muslim, that you're very different from the rest of us. And we can tolerate a certain level of Muslim-ness. But this is just too different for us to accept.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah it's just so interesting, when you start to unpack it, because it's like it just, to me, it just comes down to kind of white supremacy, because like you say, we're in a secular society. But if someone who is a practising Catholic or Christian has, you know, views about homosexuality, for example, that it's completely unacceptable, and it's because of their faith, we're not calling them extremists for that. We might disagree with it, we might say, you know, "we don't feel that there's a place for that in our society and the way it's growing. But that's your opinion." But we're not calling them extremists. And yet, the same can't be applied to followers of Islam. Which to me, kind of just boils down to upholding white supremacy.

Ayaan
Yeah, I think people are very unforgiving when it comes to Muslims and Islam. And I think Yeah, honestly, the media's had a huge part to play in that. And yeah, I mean, it's just it's really sad. And I think a lot of I don't know, I just hope for Muslims to offer them the representation that they don't get really often and for, like non Muslims, everyone else reading the book, I just hope. I hope they just come away from it being like, Oh, wow, like, I feel like this reading gave me a lot. And that was what I hoped when I wrote the book. And I've been getting like early reviews and hearing things back and like, people have been saying really positive things from sort of, like from all sides. And, you know, sometimes it's just, it's really overwhelming because I'm like, Okay, this is what I set out to do. And actually, I think, I think it's doing the job. So I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited to see what everyone else thinks as well when it goes out into the world offically tomorrow.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah, me, too, I'm really excited. I hope it does really well. Okay, so we're gonna do some light hearted questions now because they were all a little bit deep. So like light hearted character questions and like, get to know the characters a little bit more. Okay, so what is Hanans favourite TV show?

Ayaan
Hanan’s favourite TV show? Okay, she likes comedy. Okay, so I'm going to say she's a fan of Modern Family. Yeah.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah, great choice. She does give that vibe. Yeah. What song does Hussein have on repeat?

Ayaan
Oh my God, these are things I've never thought. Oh, okay. Okay, you know what, this is gonna... Yeah, I'm not really into music so I'm gonna say some kind of a Drake song, lets go with a Drake song. Yeah.

Brianna (TBP)
I can see that. As I was writing it, I was like, this is horrible because if someone asked me I'm not - I listen to the same three artists so I really wouldn't be able to answer that. Okay, so what colour is Hanan's like, "I'm going somewhere a little bit fancy a little bit bougie I got to dress it up", what colour is her hijab that she would wear to that event?

Ayaan
Oh my god. I'm gonna say green. She's gonna wear a deep green.

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah. Gorgeous. Is she's going to pair it with some like, gold accents?

Ayaan
Oh yeah, there'll be some gold earrings, sort of like coming through like on the side. Like she's just shifted her hijab a little bit and like you can see the earrings I think

Brianna (TBP)
Immaculate. And what are Hanan and Hussein's star signs? Asking the important questions.

Ayaan
Can I give them the same star sign as me?

Brianna (TBP)
Yeah, go ahead.

Ayaan
Scorpio

Brianna (TBP)
Love that. They're just things that like, the people want to know, you know?

Ayaan
I know. Yeah, I didn't even know them, and I wrote the character profile.

Brianna (TBP)
So, again, no spoilers, because I don't want to say who does the thing. But if you have like a future in this world in your head, that's not in the book. Does you know who that did you know what end up in jail?

Ayaan Mohamud
*Sounds of thought* I think...yeah

Brianna (TBP)
Good. As he should.

Ayaan
Yes. With some kind of, you know, some kind of youth related sentencing? I'm not really.. my criminal justice understanding is so bad. But some kind of youth related sentence I think,

Brianna (TBP)
Okay, good as he should. So, last few questions before I let you go. The first one is, was there a specific moment in your life where you were like, "You know what, I have to write this down. I have to share these experiences. I have to share these stories?"

Ayaan
Yes, yeah. I, one of the sort of things that started this all off for me was hearing about Shukri Abdi's story. A few years ago, she was a Somali refugee who died in Manchester after an incident in a river. And it was just sort of hearing how she'd experienced bullying in the couple of years since she'd moved to the UK. That was in 2019. And I was, yeah, I wrote something on my notes page, then about a fictional character who was a refugee and sort of the troubles they faced and about a year later in lockdown, I opened that up and I got to writing.

Brianna (TBP)
That story, that story is so devastatingly heartbreaking, I'm going to put a link in for anyone that hasn't seen it, because I think it is quite an important piece of British history that a lot of people don't know about. But yeah, I think that's a really, really powerful story. So my last question is, and I ask everyone the first half, but I've, like I say, I don't think I've actually ever interviewed anyone where faith is even relevant to the story. So I'm going to ask you a second half of the question. And it is what does being black mean to you? But also, what does being Muslim mean to you?

Ayaan
Being black to me means.. I love this question. And I hope I can give a beautiful answer. Otherwise, it's just gonna sound bad. I can write really well, but I can't speak very well. Okay. Being black to me means loving every part of who I am, loving every part of me that makes me black. And to me being Muslim, is is my purpose on my life.

Brianna (TBP)
I love that.

Ayaan
It's amazing. And your platform is amazing. And honestly, thank you for talking to me.

Brianna (TBP)
Oh, of course! And thank you for writing this book I absolutely loved it. I've literally been this morning. I've been on to everyone like this book’s coming out tomorrow, guys. And you should really check it out. Because it's an amazing book. So fingers crossed it does brilliant things for you. Have you got any plans for future books? Or is it just take a little breather now?

Ayaan
So I signed I thankfully signed a two book deal. So I've got one other book coming out with Usborne. I'm, I'm still an author with them. Yay. But I think yeah, this is it for me and Islamophobia. I think I'm just going to write stories with not so dark themes. I think I don't have much more to say on the topic of Islamophobia. It's like, I think I've covered it as much as I can. And the rest will just be Muslim and Somali rep.

You Think You Know Me by Ayaan Mohamud (£8.99, Usborne Publishing) is out on 2 February and is available from Amazon and all good bookshops. To buy a copy and support The Black Project, visit our Bookshop.org.