[ Music ] >> Sponsored by the Institute
of Museum and Library Services. [ Music ] >> Ava Schifferns: Hi, and welcome to the 2021
National Book Festival. I'm Ava Schifferns
and I'm a ninth grader at Campbell County High
School in Gillette, Wyoming. >> Bailey Carbary:
Hi, I'm Bailey Carbary and I'm a ninth grader at
Thunder Basin High School, also in Gillette, Wyoming. Ava and I started as
student ambassadors in the Fall 2020 Grab
the Mic Tour with Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People's
Literature, Jason Reynolds. >> Ava Schifferns: Today, Bailey and I are interviewing
Tahereh Mafi on her new book, "An Emotion of Great Delight". Thank you so much
for being here. Ms. Mafi, can you please tell
us a little bit about your book? >> Tahereh Mafi:
Thank you, guys. Thanks so much for,
for taking the time to do this interview today. My new book, "An Emotion of
Great Delight" is a follow-up to my first work of
realistic fiction, "A Very Large Expanse of Sea". Both books take place
in a post-9/11 world and follow different
characters both who wear a hijab and are physically Muslim in
a post, in this post-9/11 era. But they follow very
different journeys. "An Emotion of Great
Delight" is about trying to claw your way back to joy when you were trapped
[audio gap] and sorrow. So, there's not a ton of delay
in the book, but it's mostly about the search for joy. >> Ava Schifferns: Yeah, it was
a real, it's a really good book. So, I was wondering, were there
any, like, real-life events that inspired you to write
"An Emotion of Great Delight"? >> Tahereh Mafi: Yeah. Well, I was a freshman in high
school when 9/11 happened, the horrific events of which
would go on to change the world. And, in a more [audio gap] way, they irrevocably
changed my mine. I was, I was then, as well, a
very physically Muslim woman, young woman,[audio gap]. And, you know, it's, it's not like it was particulary easy
being me before 9/11 but, afterward, you know, there
was a sudden spotlight on me and anybody who looked like me
or anybody from my community. And it really changed the way
that I moved through the world and the way that the world
saw me as I moved through it. And I have written about this
experience in different ways. As I mentioned, first with
"A Very Large Expanse of Sea" and now with, "An
Emotion of Great Delight". "A Very Large Expanse of Sea"
was about unlearning anger. And it was, in many ways,
a lighter, funnier book. This book is much heavier and
it's about sorrow, mostly. So, I approached both stories from different emotional
avenues. And, but they were
both heavily influenced by my own experiences
as a young person. And the experiences of the
people that I knew from my own, from the Muslim communities
that I was a part of and from the friends that I
had, the stories that I heard. In "An Emotion of Great
Delight", the book takes place in 2003, shortly after we've
officially declared war on Iraq. And this setting is
considerably different from my previous book
because, at this point, the political climate has
changed pretty significantly. And for me, personally, this
was a, this was a period of time that I lived through when
the FBI was raiding mosques and infiltrating our communities
with undercover FBI agents. And it was a very strange time. People's houses were
just being ransacked, for no particular reason and
people were being asked to spy on each other in
our communities. And I mean, so many people at
the [audio gap] and FBI agent that it was becoming
a running joke, but it was actually a
really terrifying time. It was really scary. And it was a strange backdrop
against which to grow up, especially for somebody like me who recognizes herself
as American. I was born here, you
know, this is my country. And I was being treated,
constantly, like it was not. So, it was kind of a long way
of answering that question, but the answer is, yes. These books were, in many ways,
defined by my own experiences. >> Bailey Carbary: How did
you come up with the title of "An Emotion of
Great Delight"? >> Tahereh Mafi: So, the
main character of this book, her name is Shadi, and in
Farsi, the name Shadi means joy. And the dictionary definition of the word joy is an
emotion of great delight. And this book is about
Shadi's return to herself. It is about her journey back
to joy, back to the beginning, back to the, the essence
of who she really is and who she wants to be. >> Ava Schifferns: That's,
that's really clever. I like that. So, why did you give Shadi
the struggles that she has with her families and her best, with her family and
her best friend? >> Tahereh Mafi: I think
I really, with this book, really wanted to try and
capture how difficult it is, not just to be, you know, a
person of color struggling with a very specific
issue, right? We talk about that and I
think that's super important. And it's super important
to have stories that are just focused on that. But, for me, what I
struggled with in high school, in addition to being
a marginalized person and in addition to being
a visibly different person who didn't, who didn't quite fit
in and who struggled with all of these, like, obvious
struggles, I was also just a person. I was also just a teenager
dealing with regular pain and all of the many
traumas and struggles that affect any young
person's life. And I seldom, why, I never
saw stories like that when I was growing up. But while I think,
sometimes, Shadi's struggles in this book might seem, to
some people, unrealistic, actually I would say to
anybody, to anybody who thinks that Shadi's struggles in
the story seem unrealistic, I would say, I'm really happy
that you think that because that means that you didn't have
those experiences growing up. And that much pain seems like
way too much for one person. And that it, that it would
feel that way, says to me that, you know, that you didn't
have those experiences. And I think that's the way
it should be for most people. But it wasn't that way for me. And it wasn't that way for
a lot of people that I knew. We were very, at a very young
age, expected to shoulder many, many different burdens, many
different emotional burdens. And it, it, it felt in, in
many ways, at many times, just absolutely devastating. And I wanted to try and
capture that on the page. I wanted to tell that story
for the teenager that I was and for the teenagers
that I knew and the teenagers I know now. And say, I see you. You know, if you're out there
and there's just the world feels like it just won't
stop clobbering you, I get it and I see that. >> Bailey Carbary: What inspired
you to start writing books? >> Tahereh Mafi: You
know, the simple answer, the short answer is that
I really wanted to become, I wanted to be a part of the
world that was responsible for getting young people
interested in fiction. For me, books were a
huge escape growing up. They were in the absence of friendships, my
only real friends. That sounds a little sad,
but it was a huge gift to me. I spent most of my summers
in the library and most of my days with books. And, and, if it weren't
for that, I wouldn't be where I am today. I wouldn't be who I am today. And what's interesting though,
is that, despite my great love of books and literature
and reading, I never once ever thought
that I could be a writer. I always recognized myself as a
reader first and writer second. And that might be because,
you know, growing up, I never, no one ever made me think
or led me to believe that I could ever be a writer. That wasn't the kind of job
my parents expected me to get. And I couldn't afford
to be a starving artist. So, that just never occurred
to me as a feasible life goal. But, after I graduated
from college, I started reading for fun again. And I had forgotten what it
was like after years of reading for school and exams and papers
and, you know, higher education, taking myself very, very
seriously, I had, I'd lost that, that, the essence of, of, of why I started reading
books to begin with. And I, and I wanted to
start writing stories that would take me back
to the beginning, that, the genesis of my
love for, for books. >> Ava Schifferns: I can
relate a lot to that on, like, being more of a, thinking
of yourself as a reader because I really, really
enjoy reading a lot. I, like, you can ask anybody in
my family, and they'll tell you, most of the time, I have
my nose stuck in my book. So, on the topic of
family, how do your family and friends influence
your writing? Or, if they do, how? >> Tahereh Mafi: My
writing only become obvious to me years later. Years later, I will
look back and, and look at what I've written
or a book that I published and think, oh, I was clearly
working through something when I was writing that or I
was dealing with this problem that now seems obvious
to me, that was not so obvious to me then. So, I definitely think that
it's not just the people, but it's the situations or
the experiences that I have with the people around me. I think all of that
influences what I write and what I choose
to write about. Though, I'm also becoming
increasingly obvious to myself as the years progress. I'm realizing that I come back to the same themes
over and over again. And, at first, I didn't
love that discovery, but now I'm learning to accept
it that I'm often trying to, you know, work through,
work through a lot of pain that I felt as a young person,
I think, or even as an adult. You know, it's always changing. But I, I seem, I seem
to be drawn to these, to these themes over
and over again. And I think the people in my
life certainly influence that, influence the way that
I look at the world. And, sometimes, I
build characters that are loosely inspired by people I know or
people I've known. So, there's definitely
inspiration in all of that. >> Bailey Carbary: I
imagine the process of writing books takes a
long time and has many steps. Does that process of writing
change how you see the world? >> Tahereh Mafi: Does it
change how I see the world? That's such an interesting
question. No one's ever asked
me that before. If the process of writing a book
changes how I see the world? I think, yes, absolutely. I think one of the strangest
things about my job is that I am expected, in many
ways, in this new digital age to be present on the internet. And, also, just as a part of
my job, I'm expected to speak, to do things like this. In a different world, I would
be doing them in person, making public appearances. And I've always found that
part of my job very strange because it's a very
self-selecting group of people who choose to be writers. We're the kinds of people
who like to be quiet and we spend a lot
of time alone. And so, does writing
a book change my, change the way that
I see the world? I think so because I see the
world quietly [laughter]. I think I definitely, I
move through the world more as an observer, not that
I don't engage with it. I engage with it a great deal,
but I think I, my mind operates as a thief, stealing what it
can from the world around me, from the experiences around
me for the, from the things that I see in interpersonal
exchanges or just in the art that I consume and
the films I watch. Everything is fair game and
everything is an inspiration. And so, I look at the
world, I think, differently. But, also, I move through it
quietly, I think, more quietly than I might otherwise. It's just I spend a lot
of time being quiet. >> Ava Schifferns: So,
besides being quiet, are there, do you have any interests
and hobbies that relate to your writing as well? Like, if you, let's say, you're
interested in, like, drawing, do you ever make a character
that's also interested in drawing? And, if you do, is there
like a cool, interesting fact that you've learned or, like,
something that you've learned about one of your hobbies that
came from writing from them? >> Tahereh Mafi: Yeah. I, I definitely,
like, I'm, my new, I have a new book
coming out in February. And it's the first in
a new fantasy series. And the main character is, among
other things, a seamstress. And I have always
had an interest in, in fashion and fashion design. And I used to make my own
clothes in high school and so, I was very interested
in that sort of thing. And it's always fun for me
to tap into those interests when I'm creating
the characters. But, sometimes, you know,
my character will want to be something that
I have no interest in. And I'll have to go and learn
about it and do research and figure out, you know,
all kinds of things. So, I mean, most present in my
mind right now is my new book because I was just, I was
working on it most recently which is not "An Emotion
of Great Delight" but, but I definitely had to do a
ton of research to learn more about all kinds of things. Most recently, I had to do
a ton of research on water, ancient watering,
ancient water systems. It's just, and you do hours and
hours and hours of research just to write a couple of
sentences with some conviction. So, it doesn't, you don't
end up using all of it, but you end spending a ton
of time doing that research. And it's been great. It's a highly edifying process. I, I certainly learn a lot. >> Bailey Carbary:
That's very cool. What's your favorite book
you've written, and why? >> Tahereh Mafi:
Usually, it's the book that I have most recently
completed and that's because no one has read it yet. I love my books before
other people have read them. When other people read them,
then I have their opinions in my head and it's very easy
for me to convince myself that my books are terrible. So, sometimes, even good
feedback confuses me and I, I have to just relinquish
my book into the world at some point and let it go. And tell myself that
it is no longer mine. So, you know, there's, that's
always a little painful. So, I think my favorite book
is always the one that I've not yet shared with the world,
when it's still close to me and feels kind of private. >> Bailey Carbary: That
makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for talking
with us today, Ms. Mafi. And thank you to the audience for joining the 2021
National Book Festival. >> Tahereh Mafi:
Thank you, guys. These were lovely questions,
thank you so much for your time. [ Music ]
