Furqan Mohamed in Conversation with Idman Nur Omar

A note from interviewer Furqan Mohamed:

I like to think of myself as being pretty plugged into the CanLit scene, but Idman Nur Omar's new book, The Private Apartments, seemingly came out of nowhere for me. The premise made perfect sense, and a short story collection about home and place, with the Somali Civil War serving as an undercurrent, seemed long overdue. So when House of Anansi, the book's publisher, tweeted out promoting the book, I could not help but express my interest in talking to Idman via my own tweet.
Luckily, what I thought would remain a shout into the internet void received a response from Anansi's team, allowing me to read an ARC and connecting me with Idman. As the novel's synopsis describes, “In the insular rooms of The Private Apartments, a cleaning lady marries her employer's nephew and then abandons him, a depressed young mother finds unlikely support in her community housing complex, a new bride attends weddings to escape her abusive marriage, and a failed nurse is sent to relatives in Dubai after a nervous breakdown. These captivating and compassionate stories eloquently showcase the intricate linkages of human experience and the ways in which Somalis, even as a diaspora, are indelibly connected.”
My own family is part of that diaspora. While reading, the stories felt new and fresh but simultaneously familiar, with intricate outlines of family dynamics, love, pride, and the overall human experience. Idman's work fits beautifully alongside recent exhibitions of Somali artistry, from novels like Nadifa Mohamed's The Fortune Men to plays such as Dugsi Dayz from the U.K., while also standing on its own through her choice to weave her character's lives into short stories—something we got into in our discussion, alongside more. Speaking for almost an hour over Zoom, Idman and I bonded over growing up in and around the same neighbourhoods, Somalinimo, and what we look for in stories as writers and readers. Our conversation has been condensed for clarity.

Furqan: You mentioned that this was your first interview since the book arrived. How have things been for you since?

Idman: It's been good. Honestly, it's been a long time coming. Even when working on other things, this has been in the back of my mind, always planning and working towards it. On a personal level, it's very significant for me.

Furqan: I'm sure you're very excited. I was partly shocked no one had written about this subject matter in this way before. I know we've bonded over being raised in the Albion area and thinking about neighbourhoods like Dixon and “Jungle,” to me, writing about buildings and apartments in relation to the Somali diaspora and how we build our homes and communities in these urban settings. It feels like for a long time, everyone has been talking about Albion or Dixon, but they have yet to be interested in the interior lives that make up these places. You mentioned that the book feels like a long time coming for you, but it's been a long time coming for all of us as part of trying to capture the big picture of Somali immigrant stories.

Idman: I've always been drawn to immigrant narratives. So I read a lot of Nigerian and Indian writers, and there are so many great writers with vast immigrant experiences who publish frequently. But for us, I do agree that there isn't much representation. And not because we don't have writers like Nuruddin Farah, one of the most eminent Somali writers. We also have Warsan Shire and Nadifa Mohamed from the U.K. I'm hoping we can have our voices heard more in literature and have that same kind of [unique] representation. Because we're all still different, right?

Furqan: It is a very niche experience because we're one of the newer-ish diasporas, especially in North America, arriving in the late 90s, and early 2000s. That complicates the idea of “home” a little, I think. You have lived in a few places yourself. Did your experiences affect the way you think and write about place and belonging? And where is home for you?

Idman: I was born in Italy and moved to Canada when I was about two with my family. We started out in Toronto and moved around a little bit, and we moved out to Alberta in 2019, after finishing my M.A. at Concordia in Montreal.

Right now, I'm living in Calgary, which is home for me. I have a connection to Toronto having lived there for a long time. I grew up in Welland, a small town in the Niagara region, and I look at that place with fondness as well. I feel like a bit of a nomad.

I also think of Somalia as home, to be honest with you, even though I wasn't born there. I've never been there. I hope to go one day, of course. But I do think of that place as home. Sometimes my students and I have a lot of international students, will ask, “where are you from?” and that can be a loaded question, right? Do I tell them where I was born? Do I tell them where I have lived most of my life? I'm happy to be Canadian, but really, I know what they're getting at. They want to know where I'm from, and I say I'm Somali.

It's interesting—sometimes people will say, “My parents are from Somalia.” And that's true, technically, but if my parents are from Somalia, then I'm from Somalia. It can be a lot when you have an intersectional identity. It's complicated.

Furqan: I was recently travelling in Europe, and I had a lot of interactions where people asked, “where are you from?” And when I would say, “Canada!” they would look at me a little funny.

Idman: That's not what they wanted!

Furqan: No! And when I share that I'm Somali, I also think about the fact that I haven't been there either, but it's home. Having your heart be somewhere you've never set foot in is a particular thing. It's something I consider a lot. I don't know if you've encountered this when trying to express these ideas, but I think about the *diaspora poet* cliche, “mangoes, mangoes, mangoes... I wish for the waters of ‘back home,’” etc., when writing about nation and culture and trying to avoid creating this empty, cliched version of “home.”

Idman: In my collection, I have different generations, with characters who fled the [Somali] Civil War and others who have never been back home but really long for it. I try to be aware of those complexities. But in terms of avoiding cliches, “mangoes, mangoes” I sort of get, but can you enlighten me a little bit more?

Furqan: I think that when people try to write about “back home” or have characters that are from or are leaving home, we tend to write and read them as very simple, lacking the complexity that you mentioned.

I can’t stop thinking about the “London, 1998” chapter. And your descriptions in the following chapters of the ways the women watch each other’s children, or at the wedding with aunties in chunky gold and dyed hair feels very warm and authentic to me. Whereas in another context, the depictions of these dynamics would take a different tone—they would be caricatures of what someone thinks a refugee or a newly arrived person is, with no space for joy, sadness, or bitterness. Does that make sense?

Idman: Absolutely. Yes. I think for me, like I said, it's very important that I write from the point of view of my characters and they are the center of their own universe. Now that you mention it, I have had the experience, for example, of reading work and not even noticing that the characters come from a specific country or cultural background because they’re so bland—an attempt to kind fit in with the mainstream. I’ve also read fiction where there the characters themselves feel like second class citizens. It’s an outward kind of view working itself in, and it just feels off to me. I never wanted to approach my work from that kind of perspective.

Somali people, we have a lot of pride. MashAllah. I've always seen Somali people as being very dignified, very proud, and not unaware of their shortcomings. Not perfect, of course, you know, they're human. We’re human. Humans have flaws, insecurities, and are complex. I also wasn't really interested in creating characters that were particularly likable. I want them to be interesting. When I'm reading, I'm not thinking about whether or not I like a character, I'm more interested in whether I find this character to be real.

Furqan: I feel like the concerns about representation hang over us sometimes, having to make Muslim characters, especially Muslim migrant characters, be these likable, or at the very least, noble, respectable figures. And when your book is the first of its kind, I can imagine that pressure being real, but I don't know. Is that something that you felt at all? When I hear these conversations about representation, I kind of itch. It’s uncomfortable. Because I don’t think representation for the sake of itself is a worthy goal. My main concern is, is it good? Is the work good?

Idman Nur Omar signing a copy of *The Private Apartments*

Idman: Honestly, I didn't really think about it [representation] too much. I do think representation can be important, and I’m glad if my book can serve that purpose as well. But I just wanted to write good stories. I approach short stories in a way where I don’t like to spell everything out. I don’t like to give the story any kind of morals and don’t always have an answer or neat ending.

When writing, I was reading a lot of Elena Ferrante, the Neapolitan Novels, and I don’t know if Lila or Elena are likable characters, but I love them. They are so flawed; sometimes mean and sometimes very sweet and then felt real to me. That’s what girls and young women are really like. With literary fiction, I think, you can try to be as honest as possible. And that was my goal with this book.

Furqan: The form you chose makes sense to me. Short stories sort of represent the way that Somali people live our lives. We sort of exist in these episodes, with aunts and uncles who’ve lived in Russia and Italy. I remember finding out my grandfather was a diplomat and involved in politics when I was younger. I think about how our family members had these side quests, so to speak, and these moments in their lives, often before war and displacement, that feel like fragmented bits that form a bigger picture of who they are. We live in short stories, I feel. Did you know that was how you wanted to approach your stories?

Idman: Yes, I did. I knew I wanted my first work to be a short story collection. I just love short stories. And you’re so right about the way that our lives often feel like short story episodes. We have a rich tradition of oral storytelling. Your father will just tell you about what happened to him as a child, or your mother will share a story about her friends and their lives. [Short stories] just feel so familiar to me. I read so many short stories, and so many writers I admire write in that form from such a specific point of view.

Alice Munro, for example, to me is like the queen of short story writing. Her characters are always from small town Canada, of European descent. I’m a huge fan of Jhumpa Lahiri and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, each with such specific points of view and specific cultural backgrounds that is apparent in their writing.

For my MFA, I was working almost exclusively on short stories. At the time, I wasn't interested in linking them in any particular way. When I decided to write this collection, I kept the title of my thesis, but I wanted to start over. I was reading Gloria Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place, which she published in the 80s. It’s a novel in seven stories, but when I read it, it felt like a short story collection. It blew my mind, the ways in which her characters were connected, living in this one building, with moments that recur and reoccur. Reading what happened to them, it felt substantive and was a very moving reading experience. Then, I knew I wanted to have a link for my short stories— not as clearly as Gloria Naylor did, but I wanted that subtle link in most of the stories.

Furqan: And the idea for the book started while you were in grad school?

Idman: Yes. I was writing a lot of short stories and they were primarily about Somali characters. I knew that was my point of view, and I was really just trying to hone my skill, and write better stories. I defended that thesis, and needed that time to develop as a writer and become more clear in terms of what I wanted my project to look like.

Furqan: How long was The Private Apartments in the making, and what did becoming a better writer look like for you?

Idman: I finished my MFA in 2014, and I put it on a shelf, to be honest. I would write short stories here and there, but my focus at the time was paying off my student loans. When I decided to focus on it again was when I applied for the Canada Council for the Arts grant, which gave me the time, space, and opportunity, really.

I was very productive when I was doing the MFA. It’s hard when you’re in “real life,” working and with other responsibilities and obligations. My hat is off to people who are able to multitask in that way as I’m still learning how to do that. I’m most productive when I can really just focus on a single project. Sitting down, and writing it [The Private Apartments] took less than a year.

Furqan: What was the editing process like for you?

Idman: When I sent the book to Anansi, I was lucky that I had a couple of other publishers who were interested, but I really wanted to go with Shirarose [Wilensky] because I felt like she really understood what I was trying to do, and what my vision was for the whole collection. Then we went into the editing process, and that took about a year.

It was a lot. I had no idea what it really entailed—not that I thought my book was “done,” when I finished my book. I wanted the expertise of an editor to help me polish it and make it even better. But I was not aware of how transformative that could be and how much of an impact that process could really have. I really think that's what made the stories even stronger, with the decisions that we were making together, to cut this and rearrange that, clarify that. Knowing what I know, now, I have even more competence to really write a first draft. I know that a lot of the real work happens in the editing process.

Furqan: The book opens with a quote from Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy, which I thought was a powerful choice. I feel like not enough people know Aidoo, whose own work was experimental at times. I studied English and Women and Gender Studies, so I feel like people at that intersection are aware of her as a titan of African literature. Why did you choose her words for the epigraph?

Idman: Firstly, I thought it was gorgeous. When I read it, it was evocative. I also did want to pay a kind of tribute to her because she is one of the foremost African women writers, and she was someone who wrote in different genres. She was a playwright and a poet. [Our Sister Killjoy] was more a prose poem than it was a novel, about a journey from Ghana to Europe. It touches on poverty, the immigrant student experience and the idea of self exile.

Furqan: A lot of my favourite African writers focus on the interior and specific life experiences. I think you do that very well in your book, and I was wondering how you share these intimate, familiar details in a way that is showing and not telling and not over-explaining?

Idman: When I first started my MFA program, that’s what I was doing. I was trying to explain everything and it was detracting from my writing. I learned to cut that out very quickly, and try to tell the story as directly as I can.

I don’t try to alienate readers, but at the same time, I have to be true to the story, true to the characters and center their experiences. I feel like explaining things would be centering the experience of the observer instead, and that would be kind of strange.

When I read Tolstoy, for example, sometimes I have to Google certain terms. That’s okay, I’ve learned something new. So when reading, I hope readers don’t feel alienated and instead try to grasp as much as they can and experience the story as much as they can.

Furqan: I do think the way you’ve written these stories does reflect our experiences. The aunties who were pregnant when fleeing war, and the fact that our people continued to get married in these beautiful weddings, still had children, and found a way to build these lives amidst this great displacement.

Idman: Absolutely. I wanted to portray the richness of our culture, and the strength of spirit that we have. I read Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, and she goes to this small Somali community in Kenya, and they live in these kind of tin houses. She goes inside and sees how they're furnished so nicely, the rugs on the wall, and I thought “yeah, that’s what we do.” Even when renovating or living in subsidized housing, wherever we are, it’s home. It’s got to be comfortable and as beautiful as you can make it.

Claire FarleyJune 21, 2023Black WritersComment