Had a very interesting conversation over the weekend with a lady originally from India. We were talking about The Breadwinner.

I have a complicated relationship with this book.

When it first came out, I hated it. Still do. Kind of.

But…I really like the author Deborah Ellis and I think she had the best of intentions in writing it.

The fact that she donated all the proceeds of the Breadwinner books to Women for Women Afghanistan just shows where her heart lies. She is not like other authors who have profited off the misery of others.

She genuinely wanted to help.

And…the fact is…girls dressing up as boys in Afghanistan happens. Quite a bit. The patriarchal system there has gotten so complicated that people figure it’s easier to just dress up a girl, mess with her identity, and have her do the things we need a son to do, then to change the mentality of people to accept the empowerment of girls (as girls).

It’s messed up.

When I first read The Breadwinner what struck me most was that it, like that dreadful hubris Shabanu, also written by a white woman, plunked down this cultural North American mindset girl in an exotic Muslim setting and the only solution the white author could come up with is for the girl to dress up as a boy and run away. What does that say about Muslim culture? And Muslim girls growing up within that culture?

Both authors failed to establish the cultural nuances of the society they were writing about.

And the author of Shabanu profited handsomely from it! (Grrr. Don’t get me started!)

The Indian lady I was talking to said, “What’s wrong with it though? Those things do happen there?”

And I’ve been thinking all weekend of what it is that really bothers me.

She’s right. Those things do happen in that culture.

But when you have a book like that, The Breadwinner, and it gets picked up by Angelina Jolie and turned into a movie that’s up for an Oscar, then you run the risk of such a story defining Afghan culture, the way The Kite Runner defines it for adults.

And you get the impression of ‘well that’s Afghan culture’ when it isn’t.

It would be like a story about drug addiction and youth homelessness and prostitution being touted abroad as defining Canadian culture.

Does it happen?

Of course! It’s even rampant! Our young people are in terrible crisis!

But does that define what being Canadian is?

Emphatically! No!

There’s nothing wrong with telling such stories but the risk becomes, as Chimamanda N’gozi Adichi says, that it becomes the singular story about the culture. And it portrays Afghans as victims of their own cultural insecurities.

I have become resigned to the fact that the Breadwinner has become a major text, taught and revered within the school system. I have become resigned to the fact that it is universally appalling, even to children of Afghan backgrounds.

And it compelled me to write Wanting Mor, almost as a rebuttal of sorts. The fact that the same publisher published both of them, and even felt obligated for the sake of accuracy to do so, is a testament to how change comes about.

And something else occurred to me.

Even as my own humble (and dare I say more culturally accurate) attempts at writing our stories have failed to reach the same acclaim as the Breadwinner and other stories, I realized something the other day.

The Roses in My Carpets (about my Afghan refugee foster child) has been in publication for more than twenty years. It led me to writing Wanting Mor, and that has been in publication for more than ten years.

Both books still earn significant royalties after so many years!!!

For The Roses in My Carpets, the royalties have always gone towards helping other refugee children, and we’re talking about $300 per year.

For Wanting Mor, it’s a lot more than that!

How many authors can say that about books that are that old?

It means that there’s still a significant population out there who believes in them.

I’ve always believed that all I need to do is keep writing, keep getting better, and eventually one book will break through so that all of a sudden people will reexamine all my body of work.

Big Red Lollipop has definitely been a huge success! Nine years and counting and the royalties are much higher!

But I’m talking mega success. I’m still striving towards that.

It’ll happen insha allah, but in the mean time all I can do is my best to tell more than just the single story!