Photo by Christine Rogers
There's nothing like a road trip when it comes to finding yourself. "By abandoning your routines, your surroundings, your work in favor of new and shifting environments and unpredictable and surprising situations, you are forced to see and engage with the world in different ways," says Sheba Karim, author of Mariam Sharma Hits the Road (HarperCollins, Jun 2018; Gr 9 Up). Her riotously funny, zany, yet deeply perceptive novel (an SLJ star and a popular pick) sees three South Asian teenagers deal with a host of issues, from strained family relationships to Islamophobia, as they leave their suburban New Jersey town and head for New Orleans. Karim spoke to SLJ about what it was like to write about traveling the United States from the point of view of a character from a marginalized community, her own favorite road trip books, and more. You offer a different perspective on the road trip novel, as your characters have to think about their safety and identity in ways that white protagonists usually don’t. I spent most of my adult life living in Philadelphia, New Delhi, and New York. When I moved to Nashville, I would walk into a new “hip” restaurant and be the only person of color in the room, or attend a crowded art crawl and see only a few other people of color. I went to a local children’s writing conference in which every panelist and moderator was white. In these situations, you become keenly aware of your difference, of the color of your skin. Similarly, coming from the suburbs of New York City, Mariam, Ghazala, and Umar can’t help but be aware of how much they stand out as they travel through the South. As Muslims, they are very attuned to Islamophobia (which, as anyone who follows state and local politics can tell you, is thriving in Tennessee), and Umar as a gay man is conscious of the prevalence of homophobia throughout the South. Even within the city limits of more liberal Nashville, you’ll see Confederate flags and hear anti-Muslim and antigay rhetoric. I know a biracial lesbian couple who are reluctant to visit rural Tennessee because of the antagonism they’ve faced. When you enter an environment that has been traditionally hostile to integral aspects of your identity, it’s as though your hair is proverbially standing on end; you’re waiting for something to happen, fearing something might happen, hoping nothing will happen. You wonder what you can do to ingratiate yourself—smile more, be especially polite in your interactions, not do anything overtly “other.” Both this and your earlier novel, That Thing We Call a Heart, offer nuanced looks at South Asian and Muslim identities. Is that something you consciously think about as you’re writing? Listen, on one level, it’s not about me being conscious—if you are writing characters who exist as brown-skinned Muslims in the contemporary United States, they will be conscious of their identity. They don’t have a choice, or the ability to pretend. In the role of writer, you must consciously think about it because your characters are thinking about it. They’re struggling with the questions of what does it mean to be a brown Muslim in this current political climate? What does to mean for them, personally, to be a Muslim, or second-generation South Asian? What does it mean to be gay and Muslim?We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing
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