Miriam El Abbassi | Arts Editor
Featured Image: Emerging author, and York alumni, S.K. Ali is making waves in the young adult and children’s book scene. | Courtesy of S.K. Ali
Emerging author, and York University alumni, S.K. Ali is making waves in the young adult and children’s book scene. With three published works, and one on the way, Ali is giving a voice to young Muslim people, and spotlighting current issues.
After graduating from York University with a degree in creative writing, Ali’s debut novel, Saints and Misfits, was met with critical acclaim.
Saints and Misfits was a finalist for the American Library Association’s 2018 William C. Morris award, garnering a lot of attention for its portrayal of an “unapologetic Muslim-American teen’s life.”
Saints and Misfits, the first young adult novel from Simon & Schuster’s new Muslim-focused Salaam Reads imprint, follows a 15-year-old Arab-Indian-American girl named Janna Yusuf.
As Ali describes, “Janna has assigned the people in her life to one of three categories: saint, misfit, or monster. Janna sees herself as a misfit… [And] when the saint in Janna’s Muslim community reveals himself to be a monster, she is unable to confide in anyone, both out of a sense of shame and the fear that no one will believe her.”
Throughout all of this, the audience follows Janna as she grapples with her faith, trying to reconcile her spiritual beliefs with being a teen in the 21st century.
Ali’s second, and most recent, novel, Love From A to Z, explores how racism, manifested as Islamophobia, permeates through all levels of society. It centres around the protagonist Zayneb after she gets suspended from highschool for confronting her teacher on their racist remarks.
She then travels to Doha, Qatar to stay with her aunt for the duration of her suspension, where she meets Adam, a young Muslim boy who she falls head-over-heels in love with. Zayneb’s story is told through journal entries, allowing the reader to become fully immersed into her thoughts and feelings.
Ali’s work helps to give light to issues that are not so prevalent in children’s and teen’s literature. Stories about Muslim youth are few and far between, and are rarely the ones that ever take the spotlight in any space. These are stories anyone can enjoy, whether the reader is a young Muslim person seeking representation in literature, or just someone looking for a fresh perspective on a classic love story.
