Firstly, congratulations on the successful debut! The reception to Diving, Falling has been incredibly positive. The novel reads almost like a thriller at times, with the main character Leila coming to an exhilarating reckoning of identity after the passing of her husband.
To begin with, I’d love to know whether anything surprised you about the reception to your novel so far.
One of the surprising — and also fascinating — things about putting a novel into the world is seeing the range of ways in which it is read; the many and varied meanings people read into the characters and their stories. It’s just amazing seeing your novel take on a life of its own ‘out there’ and also in readers’ minds. It feels like a big and wonderful thing, when readers honour your work with their time and attention, suspend their disbelief, and want to discuss the world that you have created. It’s a kind of trust, and I hope that I have honoured it.
That’s a lovely way to consider that author–reader relationship. When reading a novel, readers bring so much of their own experience to the work. A recurring theme in reviews for Diving, Falling is seeing Leila as a complex and occasionally morally ambiguous lead. What was the inspiration behind Leila, and do you have any advice for writing slightly complicated and unlikeable main characters?
I wanted to write Leila as a complicated, creative woman at a certain stage in her life. I wanted her to live in the world of this book as a whole person — with all the contradictions, desires, impulses, shortcomings, and strengths that this suggests. As a character and a narrator, Leila claims her experience, knowledge, authority, and voice. I wrote her, not with the aim of her gaining approval for her every thought and action, but with a desire to represent the complexity of what it is to be human and to be in relationship with other people.
You’ve said in the past, ‘I’m not one of those novelists who has been writing stories since childhood. I came to it in maturity, and I think that has enriched this novel.’ Can you expand on this? I feel sometimes in the literary space there can be so much emphasis on new ‘young’ authors.
I came to fiction writing later in life, following an academic career, and I do feel that this novel is the product of perspective and maturity. It also seems to me, oddly, that my whole life was leading up to this writing; that I am drawing on creative, emotional, and intellectual reserves that have been accumulating. I love reading books written by young people, but there is something powerful, too, in a woman writing from her gathered knowledge and understanding of the world.
I couldn’t agree more. Who is your biggest inspiration when it comes to writing?
Virginia Woolf is a deep and abiding influence. Also, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Jane Howard, and Elena Ferrante. And my friend Yumna Kassab. Her integrity, her writing across many different forms, her expansive world view, and her commitment to the creative life are constant inspirations in my life and my writing life.
Lastly, what have you learnt from the publishing process as a debut author? Would you approach any future works differently?
The process of debuting as a fiction author has taught me that, while there will inevitably be anxieties and trepidations around a large creative project, a published novel has a life of its own, and a truth of its own, and that it is its own, autonomous, thing out there in the world. That it’s actually going to be OK!
Diving, Falling has had a dream run. Between my amazing agent, my publisher and editor, and the whole team at Scribe, I have always felt guided and supported by gifted people who have the best interests of my book, and of me as an author, at heart. I’m in the incredibly happy position to say that I wouldn’t do anything differently. Diving, Falling is available now online and in all good bookshops.
