I first read Sumayya Lee’s The Story of Maha while on vacation. The book was so unput-downable that I had to beg my 5-year-old for his toy flashlight so that I could read the end of it in a dark car on our drive back home.
We think that Sumayya Lee’s novels will be on everyone’s bookshelves in the very near future, so we wanted to grab her before she’s too famous to blog for us! Her novels The Story of Maha and Maha Ever After are narrated by a brash young Muslim woman who is funny, insightful and a force of nature . . . much like the author herself.
On Finding Inspiration: A Spilling Ink Creativity Blog Guest Post
By, Sumayya Lee
One Monday morning in 1978, I walked to the little green school in my little piece of sunny South Africa, and sat down at my wooden desk. I stuck my pencils in the inkwell and realised with horror that I had forgotten all about my teacher’s instruction: please bring in a picture from a newspaper or magazine.
Our teacher was a lovely woman in high heels and a cheerful sari. “Now children, I want you to paste the picture into your English books and then write as much as you can about it.” Everyone nodded obediently while my eyes darted around the classroom looking out for anyone with an extra picture.
Sure enough, one of the swotty boys, who also happened to be rather snobby, was busy laying out his collection of brightly coloured pictures. I went over, and asked nicely. He shook his head. I begged and pleaded - and after thinking about it for absolute ages, he finally parted with the only black and white picture. I swallowed my disappointment, grabbed onto it gratefully and scuttled back to my seat.
It was a picture of a new hotel being built in my city’s Golden Mile - the road along the beach, and the place where most people took their Sunday Afternoon Drive. I loved the beach road and yesterday, my father had cruised slowly past this hotel and pointed it out to my brother and me. It was the tallest building in the city and had a lift on the outside. “And inside,” my father said, “instead of normal lights, there are beautiful crystal chandeliers! Like a palace!”
I glued the picture carefully into my exercise book and chewed on my pencil for a few seconds before getting on with the task. For the first time, I waited impatiently for our teacher to mark my work – and squealed with delight as she stuck a star into book! The gold star shone against the black and white picture and I hopped and skipped back to my seat – amazed that I could write and even more a
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