1 00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:10,870 My mother tells a story of two young Franco Iranians living in Paris experiencing an identity crisis. 2 00:00:10,870 --> 00:00:15,170 There are many plots inside the plot in my novel. 3 00:00:15,170 --> 00:00:21,730 And because their destinies of these two friends are going to diverge. 4 00:00:21,730 --> 00:00:27,640 One becomes more religious than the other. Both trying to find their roots. 5 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:35,980 My time at Oxford was very much of an inspiration to write this novel because I made many Muslim friends as well as other friends. 6 00:00:35,980 --> 00:00:40,170 My husband was Iranian and I met him at Oxford when I was there. 7 00:00:40,170 --> 00:00:49,300 I also made friends from Egypt, Palestinian descent, and also Turkey, one of our best friends who now is from Turkey. 8 00:00:49,300 --> 00:00:52,540 So what happened is that all his friends were very open. 9 00:00:52,540 --> 00:00:57,790 They had values, I found that were very different from the ones we were putting forward in the West. 10 00:00:57,790 --> 00:01:05,710 Loyalty and honesty and sincerity, thoughtfulness, kindness. 11 00:01:05,710 --> 00:01:14,320 And I saw that these values that they had ingrained in themselves was very much made it much harder for them to integrate in our societies, 12 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:20,230 because in our societies we don't really put these complex qualities forward. 13 00:01:20,230 --> 00:01:25,140 It was when I realised that how misunderstood all the Muslims were. 14 00:01:25,140 --> 00:01:29,490 After 9/11 that I decided to write this book. 15 00:01:29,490 --> 00:01:39,270 I purposes to the form of fiction because I thought it was a much better way to convey emotions and empathy than if I chose to write an essay. 16 00:01:39,270 --> 00:01:43,890 I my background is from journalism and I write a lot of articles, of course, 17 00:01:43,890 --> 00:01:51,510 but then I find it much harder to write articles and fiction, surprisingly, because when you write fiction, you are very free. 18 00:01:51,510 --> 00:02:00,210 Whereas when you write articles, you have to really follow a pattern of research and you can never do enough research to write an article or so. 19 00:02:00,210 --> 00:02:11,030 I always want to be very impartial when I write an article and it's always very hard to be very unbiased. 20 00:02:11,030 --> 00:02:16,930 What came as a surprise in the writing process was how easy it was to write fiction. 21 00:02:16,930 --> 00:02:23,540 When I decided to start my novel and when I completed my first wife, it only took two months. 22 00:02:23,540 --> 00:02:29,620 I conceived a long, detailed summary, and then I started to write chapter after chapter. 23 00:02:29,620 --> 00:02:34,000 What I didn't know is that it was going to take a much longer time to rewrite and rewrite 24 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:39,550 and rewrite in order to get a finished product that I could send to a publisher. 25 00:02:39,550 --> 00:02:47,720 On the whole, it took me two years, but I strongly recommend the journey. 26 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:52,520 I learnt many things during my time at Wooster that helped me my writing career. 27 00:02:52,520 --> 00:03:00,710 First, the tutors encouraged us to do research index, which was extremely helpful for my work in journalism and as a novelist. 28 00:03:00,710 --> 00:03:05,750 We had a solid, fantastic Provo's, Lord Brooks, who was Autumn Safran historian, 29 00:03:05,750 --> 00:03:14,930 and he taught us how to pursue research in all different different domains, encouraged us greatly in the novel. 30 00:03:14,930 --> 00:03:22,700 The main character is one of the academic specialities of Islam who teaches at Wooster College. 31 00:03:22,700 --> 00:03:33,700 And lastly, one of my translators had to translate as one of them is this young woman, linguist from Bob from Wooster College. 32 00:03:33,700 --> 00:03:40,820 But finally, I just wanted to mention that Oxford in general helped me find out who I was and 33 00:03:40,820 --> 00:03:49,289 also encouraged us to accomplish what we really wanted to achieve in our lives.