Last week, I had a great opportunity to speak with Sabaa Tahir, the author of An Ember in the Ashes, which debuted at #2 on the New York Time Bestsellers list. I read the book, which is a fantastic Young Adult epic adventure about two characters trying to survive a brutal, violent Ancient-Rome-like world.
After reading An Ember in the Ashes, you’ll find yourself wanting to talk about the characters: their perspectives, decisions, feelings, and relationships to each other. The world Sabaa creates for them is just as interesting.
It was a pleasure chatting with her before her book signing at The Book Stall in Winnetka, a suburb a few miles north of Chicago, IL. A transcript of our conversation can be read below. Also, any major spoilers that were discussed have been edited out, since we know many haven’t had a chance to read this awesome book yet.
Gabrielle Bondi: Congratulations on the New York Times! How does that feel?
Sabaa Tahir: Thank you! It feels awesome. It’s really the BEST feeling.
Were you anticipating that? I know they put a big marketing push behind your book.
I wasn’t anticipating anything, just really hoping.
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What inspired you to write this story and drew you to this setting of Ancient Rome?
The inspiration for this story is really seated in my childhood. I grew up in a small town, very isolated. It was in a desert, similar to where the book takes place. I just didn’t fit in. I felt like an outcast, and I felt like I didn’t have a voice or any power. I turned to books for comfort and for friendship, basically. I had friends, and they were lovely, but I still never felt like I fit in, even always with them. I think when you grow up feeling that way, you know that feeling like you have no power and just you don’t matter? It’s a lonely place to be. So as I grew older, I started realizing I can have a voice; I can have that sense of control or that sense of belonging by writing. The problem is that my parents are South Asian, and they wanted me to go into medicine. I decided to go into journalism, which they weren’t thrilled about, but they got over it.
I’m sure now they’re very happy.
Now, they’re very happy. Their concern was just worry for me; they wanted me to be able to hold down a job. I went to college, majored in communications, worked for the school newspaper, and got an internship at the Washington Post. That was sort of a “rocket to the moon” for me. I went to the Washington Post; I worked there one summer, then the second summer as an intern, and then I got a job there.
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While I was working at the Washington Post in 2007, I decided that I wanted to write a book, and I wasn’t sure of what it was going to be about, but that it was going to be about people who felt like me as a kid and didn’t belong. Whereas I sort of internalized it and didn’t do anything about it, I wanted these people to fight against this feeling and fight back to get control of their lives, their destinies. That’s really the inspiration for the book.
As far as Ancient Rome, I was always interested in it; it was such a fascinating period of time: the social stratification, the architecture and like the weird intersection between logic and theology, which are not opposing, but how they work together. They had an Oracle, and how the emperors would always go to her and get predictions for whatever was going to happen during their reign. I just think it was such a fascinating time period.
I also noticed how magic is kind of weaved throughout the story, but yet, it still feels very grounded in reality. I was wondering how you balanced that.
The Augurs are sort of based off the Oracle. The Oracle was one woman, and she basically sat on this tripod over a crack in the ground. Historians believed that there were these fumes that came from the crack and made her have visions and hallucinations; that’s where they were coming from. But of course, the people who went to see her believed that they were coming from the gods, so she would predict things. I thought it was fascinating, but I really wanted to make it grittier. I want these Oracles to not be stuck in this little place, but to come out into the world and cause havoc.
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The idea of magic, some of it is the magical creatures or Middle Eastern myth, like jinn and all that. That comes from my mother; she used to tell me stories that would scare the daylights out of me when I was a little kid. That just worked its way in naturally.
You see that a bit with [a certain character] and [their] power.
Yeah, it’s meant to sort of be the beginning of that for [them]. So [that character is] pretty bewildered because you know for the Martials, that’s witchcraft essentially.
I think it’s funny they think that’s witchcraft, but they’re totally okay with the Augurs.
Well, it’s not from the Augurs, and it’s not anything they know. That was really common in the ancient world. That our magic and our rights and our traditions are okay and real, but yours aren’t.
I’m going to be weird here, but you think about The Inquisition and how that was based on people not being basically the same religion, and yet they still believed that if you repented, you would be forgiven. If you didn’t repent, you would go to hell. These people actually believe very similar things but had these little differences. I think this is sort of how the world works; people have their own ideas of what is right. I was trying to draw on some of that ridiculousness.
Click NEXT to continue and learn more about the characters and their relationships.
The character perspectives, Elias and Laia’s, they read very differently. Usually when I read dual perspectives, I get lost and forget which character I’m reading. Was it a struggle balancing those two mindsets? Did you have a hard time switching or was it something that came naturally? Did you know these characters very well from the get-go?
I knew the characters very well, but I had to get to know them more and a little deeper. Because you really need to live in your character’s skin and inhabit them to really get to know them to some degree. Just the way an actor does, to really speak with their voice. I think what I struggled with, which I didn’t expect, was the timing, making sure the timing worked. Because it’s like, I had this big calendar with every big event of every single day, and I tried to figure out when we would stop with Laia and continue with Elias, but still understand Laia’s perspective when we come back without it having to start on the exact same day every time.
I noticed that, especially during the trials, Elias was busy with that, but at the end of it, it didn’t pick up at that exact same time, but went back a few days.
I think it says something like “seven days earlier,” and it’s Laia’s chapter. That was tricky, finding a way to do that so people understand, and I think my editor suggested let’s put “seven days earlier” so people will know that it took place a week ago, and they won’t have to try to understand.
Almost in the beginning, it felt like Laia and Elias’ lives won’t intersect. Once you find out that Laia’s going to be his mother’s slave, well then, you figure they eventually will meet. But earlier I was trying to figure out—
How their paths were going to cross?
Yeah, and what totally threw me off was the introduction of Helene and Elias’ really intense friendship with her. And her feelings for him. She ended up being my favorite character because of how complex she is, and how even though she grew up in this Martial world, all of her decisions were rooted from love. Was that a surprise for you? Why did you have him have a friend like that?
Because I think it’s very, very common for many people to have a friend who they’ve known for a long time and not realize that that person has feelings for them. Or on the other hand, having feelings for someone and that person never gets it. I don’t know if you ever experienced that, but I know a million friends, and even myself, that have experienced it. I would look and see that a friend totally likes him, and he would be completely clueless. They would be great together, but it’s not happening because he doesn’t get it. He’s always thought of her as a friend, and when you think of someone as a friend, that’s the only identity they have for you. You’ve dated other people, you’re with other people, and you come to them and you’re like, “Oh my god, that guy I was dating is such a jerk,” and that person has been in love with you the whole time; that’s like every rom-com in the world.
It’s very common, but I sort of discovered Helene’s love for him as I was writing her. I started it off with them just as friends, but then I was thinking about it, and I thought that she is very lonely in her world, and this is the only person who doesn’t look at her and think “Girl.” He looks at her and thinks “Soldier,” then he thinks “Friend,” and then he thinks “Badass,” and then he thinks “Girl.” But when does that become a problem. Do you get what I’m saying?
I also like how it confuses your emotions because he has this physical attraction to her and love for her as a friend. He loves who she is. It complicates things because you don’t know if you should root for him and Laia or him and Helene.
It wasn’t really meant to be any sort of love triangle because romance is not really the heart of this book. It’s something that happens because of the circumstances. But this, to me, is a high fantasy and an adventure story first, with romantic elements.
Click NEXT to continue reading, learn about how violence plays a big role in this story, and see some fun Harry Potter talk.
Violence is a big part of these characters’ lives. One of the scenes in the book is truly devastating. How do you go about exploring violence as a theme?
I had to research violence. I had to research killing and what it does to people. The biggest thing is our world is filled with it. Over here, we’re in a beautiful book store, there’s no one trying to kill us or bombing us, and that’s not the case in many, many parts of the world. We’re extremely lucky. Part of this book for me was trying to show what other places in the world throughout history—all the way back to Ancient Rome and before that—what they’ve experienced. That is life in a war zone. You make these devastating choices for reasons you maybe don’t understand. Maybe somebody else does, but maybe they don’t either. You can’t take them back, and that’s the worst thing about it. That is sort of what happens in the book. The point I’m trying to make is that war zones are really, really harsh places, and I think we have a very romanticized view of war, and I think that’s very dangerous, so I try to not romanticize the idea of war in the book.
It was really sad. I felt gutted when that happened.
I was gutted, and I wrote it! I was like Ahhhhh.
I hate when an author sort of cops out and something you think happens ends up not being real, but here it does happen; it is real.
And he can’t take it back. That’s one of the things I wanted to explore because I read this book called “On Killing’ by a guy named Lt. Dave Grossman, and he has talked about how soldiers are trained to kill and why and how they used to be trained.
There is a really fascinating story he was talking about. One of the wars, many years ago, I’m not sure if it was the Civil War or Revolutionary War, but I believe it was the Civil War. There was a battlefield where researchers and scientists inspected the weapons that were left on the battlefield, and they found that some insane percentage of these weapons were like double-loaded or triple or quadruple-loaded. Meaning that in the olden days when you shot a gun, it wasn’t just you put in the bullets and start shooting. Every time you wanted to shoot, you had to repack gun powder, close it, then re-shoot. Then open it, repack, and shoot again. What they found was that people were running at each other at two sides, which were how wars were fought in those days without drones and all of that kind of stuff. They didn’t want to shoot each other face-to-face. So they would pretend to shoot, and then they would repack, and again they would pretend to shoot and repack. Because they didn’t want their peers to think that they weren’t fighting.
It just goes to show that by nature humans don’t want to kill. So what it does to them is sort of warp them in a way. When I have the killing in the book, it’s to get us thinking about what it means to take another person’s life.
I heard that a sequel hasn’t been greenlit yet, which I think is kind of ridiculous. Do you have plans for a sequel?
I have one in my head. I’ve been messing with it because I can’t get away from the world.
I feel like there’s still a lot more to it.
Yeah, there’s more. When I wrote the book, I felt that this could stand alone. If people want more, then I have the story to tell, which would be lovely. But it was just a matter of reader feedback, and Penguin feels it’s worth it to see readers want it or not. Not every book that could have a sequel, I guess, should have one. Maybe sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I can’t think of a book where I got a sequel, and it wasn’t a sequel that I didn’t like.
Do you see this as a trilogy or do you not know yet?
Way back in the day, I thought that it would be more than one book, but as I think about the story, it changes. I don’t have a sort of specific thing in my head because I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t know what’s going to happen.
True. There might be a movie in development?
There is a movie in development. It’s with Paramount, and it’s with the former producer of The Chronicles of Narnia, and he also was the executive producer of Breaking Bad. My brother is also a producer, who is in film and has been for years, who has also worked for The Chronicles of Narnia with this producer, that’s why they’re doing it together.
Are they with Walden Media?
They were with Walden Media. Yeah, and then later, they stayed friends. It was a pretty easy decision.
That’s very cool. Do you know where it is in development?
I do! I can’t really say where it is though.
I’m a big movie buff, so—
Then you know how long it takes. There’s a script, and it’s at the place where the script is going and in the process. Once the script is going, then I think they hire a director, after that, I guess the director decides what to do. I’m not sure, actually.
Scouting, casting, and all that stuff.
Yeah, so hopefully it all happens. But that hasn’t happened yet. It’s still in the writing and re-writing stage.
Many of the TYF staffers read your book and enjoyed it. They came up with a few questions as well… Which of the characters in An Ember in the Ashes would you like to have dinner with and why?
I would like to have dinner with… let me think. There’s an obvious response to this, but you don’t want to look like a creeper. My answer changes; the last time I was thinking about it, the answer was Laia. But I think I would actually really want to talk to Elias’ grandfather, Quin Veturius.
I was going to say the same thing.
Really?! Because I want to know more about the Commandant as a young girl, even though I already know her history, because you know. But I want to hear it from him. You don’t just come into the world that angry. Also, I would want to ask him about his wife, who’s clearly gone. Like who was she, did you really like her? Yeah, he would be very interesting to talk to.
He was always one character who I couldn’t really understand where his alliances fell. Okay, if you can live in any fictional world, which would it be and why?
Fictional world? Hogwarts.
Which house would you be in?
I would love to be in Gryffindor because I feel like it would be a cool house. I’m hoping the Sorting Hat would give me a choice and be like you can be in Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. I’d be like “Gryffindor!” But I think that Ravenclaw would also be a possibility because I studied really hard and I’m curious about things, like bookish.
Yeah, I always got Ravenclaw in those Buzzfeed quizzes.
Those Buzzfeed quizzes are funny because I would say about 80% of the time I got Gryffindor, but I also feel like that’s me now. I feel like if I answered those questions as an eleven-year-old, I would have been in Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor.
Do you think that the Sorting Hat is sort of like an Oracle?
In a way, yeah, absolutely. It seeks what is in your heart. It doesn’t just seek you, it seeks your potential. You see that in Ron and Hermione, right? Ron is kind of a little bit of a wimp at times, with the spiders. He’s scared a lot. He doesn’t want to do stuff. But then he finds it in him to do it. Also, because he’s like “I don’t want to be left behind!” So he goes with it.
Final question, I know you’re really into music, if you could pick one theme song for this book, what would it be?
It would be “Outro” by M83.
I love that song.
It’s a good song. The reason why is because the lyrics are really beautiful to me, and they’re about taking control of one’s life. It’s because the lyrics are:
I’m the king of my own land.
Facing tempests of dust, I’ll fight until the end.
Creatures of my dreams raise up and dance with me!
Now and forever, I’m your king!
It meant a lot to me personally because it felt like me talking to my characters, and being like, I will finish this book, and I will finish your stories, but you have to let me hear them. On the other hand, it represented the characters trying to take control of their own destinies, to get away from darkness and make something better of them.
That’s perfect.
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Listen to M83’s “Outro” below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDoEqBas4Y0
A huge thanks once again for Sabaa Tahir sitting down with me for this interview. I bet you now want to read or re-read An Ember in the Ashes. Lucky for you, the book is now available wherever books are sold.
If you love An Ember in the Ashes as much as we do, make your voices heard! Share this interview and let others know that you want a sequel.
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