Features How I wrote it: Hafsa Zayyan on We Are All Birds of Uganda
Hafsa Zayyan managed to write her debut novel in six months, while working full time as a lawyer. Here the winner of the Merky Books New Writer’s Prize discusses the hours of research and late nights it took to produce her brilliant first book.
Weeks after publishing her debut novel, Hafsa Zayyan still considers her career as an author to be something “random and flukey”. The 29-year-old won a publishing contract after entering the first New Writer’s Prize from Merky Books on something of a whim, and ended up having to deliver an entire manuscript in six months – while working full-time as a dispute resolution lawyer.
Win a winter reading package with We Are All Birds of Uganda Competitions Win a winter reading package with We Are All Birds of Uganda
Order We Are All Birds of Uganda by Hafsa Zayyan and you could win the perfect winter reading package! 18 January 2021
They go where they will.
If there’s one debut novel that needs to be on your radar this January it’s
We Are All Birds of Uganda. Written by the Hafsa Zayyan, the winner of the #Merky Books New Writers’ Prize, this story moves between two continents over a troubled century and is an immensely resonant novel that explores racial tensions, generational divides and what it means to belong.
Hafsa Zayyan s prizewinning debut introduces us to Sameer, a 26-year-old Cambridge graduate and high flying lawyer in a prestigious London firm. Having moved from Leicester with childhood friends, Rahool and Jeremiah, Sameer is finding that with his career taking off - he s been asked to help set up his firm s new Singapore office - the three friends are growing apart.
Itching to get your hands on some novels from fresh talent? This year s new authors are covering a cornucopia of subjects ranging from chilling crime to love stories set to be adapted for screen.
Here are just some of the new names that should bring joy during lockdown and beyond. Keep an eye on publishing dates, which could be prone to change.
Thrills and chills
1. Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler (4th Estate, Feb 4)
Online fakery is certainly a zeitgeist topic and this terrific debut sees a young woman who suspects her boyfriend of cheating, go through his phone. In doing so, she discovers he has a secret online identity as a conspiracy theorist. It provides much food for thought about how to maintain a sense of self in a world of online fraudsters.
When Hafsa Zayyan was a child she wrote letters to her paternal grandfather in Nigeria. He would send back a marked-up version of her letter, correcting its grammatical mistakes. “He didn’t realise