Diana Farid is the author of the new children's picture book The Light of Home. Her other books include When You Breathe. She also is a physician and an associate professor at Stanford University.
Q: What inspired you to write The Light of Home, and how did you create your character Nur?
A: I’m fascinated by the horizon and why we are drawn to it. And as I was growing up, I heard stories about how my own family members and friends left the faraway horizons of 1970s and early 1980s Iran. They would never be able to return.
I wanted to explore how they, and anyone who has to leave a horizon they love, finds a sense of home and belonging again. And I wanted to showcase the role art can play in that search.
I created Nur as a symbol of the many women I know who had to leave Iran suddenly. And I set her home at the Caspian Sea because my family used to frequent it. I wanted to pay tribute to the beauty of the land my family remembers and the fond memories they created there.
Just as important, I wanted to highlight the women of Iran. As you may know, for decades they’ve met brutal and unrelenting oppression. For the last few years, they have galvanized efforts for their freedom in the #womanlifefreedom efforts. And in 2023, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to one of its champions, still imprisoned Narges Mohammadi.
Nur and her mother flee the violence of their homeland, and when I see them in The Light of Home, I also see my wish for all the women in the world who seek freedom.
I also didn’t see any picture books about Iran that took place when people there were significantly more free than they are now, and the time of tumult and transition that forced many of them to leave, and the many others to who stayed there and had to say goodbye.
It’s a story most people don’t know about. And it’s a vital one to remember because that story opens a door for readers to learn about how people from that part of the world were diverse in religion, culture, tastes, dress, and language, and stem from ancient civilizations.
It opens a door for us to ask why that story isn’t told, how cultures can be usurped, and even erased. And it illuminates how that culture is kept alive.
Q: Immigration is a big topic in the news today--what do you think your book adds to the discussion?
A: The Light of Home adds that displacement is often a matter of survival, that families and children are involved, families like mine and yours, children like mine and yours.
The Light of Home reminds us that needing to flee is something that could happen to any of us at any moment. And that people who immigrate or who have been forcibly displaced live for the same loves we all have, like food, traditions, and family.
The Light of Home adds that we have much more in common than we don’t — especially when it comes to our desire to create in art.
Q: What do you think Hoda Hadadi’s illustrations contribute to the book?
A: Hoda Hadadi’s illustrations add empathy and majesty to the book. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at when I first saw the first renderings.
In the first scenes, at the beach, when Nur’s family picnics together, Hoda put my great-grandmother in it. Without us ever communicating, Hoda knew my great-grandmother’s habit and posture.
Turn to the scene where Nur’s home is being ransacked — something I never mentioned in the manuscript much less to the Scholastic team or Hoda — and there is my grandfather’s home in Tehran, days after he fled. There is the home of every person now in the world fleeing war, oppression, and natural disasters.
Turn to the mountain scene, and you feel the weight and distance of having to move, on your own feet, carrying your children and a few belongings, away from home toward an unknown.
Turn to the scene where Nur’s mom has taped up Nur’s old painting, the only one from her home that Nur quickly grabbed and took with her, and you see Nur’s past literally making space for itself in her new home.
Hoda adds deep authenticity to the illustrations of The Light of Home. As an artist who lives in Iran, who walks the same streets my parents, and their parents, did, she has lived through the changes in the country over the last 45 years that I have not.
She’s been able to place in the book’s art a love for that beautiful culture, and all the treasures it holds, that is palpable. As she says in her illustrator’s note, “art is a way of speaking,” and in her illustrations for The Light of Home, her art sings.
Q: What do you hope kids (and adults) take away from The Light of Home?
A: I want kids and adults to remember the power of art, and food, and games, especially when shared with loved ones, to help us re-connect to the things we love.
The Light of Home is more than just about “home is where the heart is.” It’s about how art often isn’t an ornament, an option, or a choice, but a way of moving through our hardest moments, surviving, breathing, and eventually meeting love again, the ultimate horizon.
But there’s more to take away from The Light of Home. At my recent school visits, a number of the kids asked why Nur had to leave home.
One of the answers of course is that home wasn’t safe anymore. And sometimes my answers would also include, as is evident in the illustrations, that people have made home unsafe.
One of the kids I visited recently asked why people would do that to each other. And even though I didn’t initially set out to write The Light of Home with that in mind, it actually is one of the most important questions the book brings up. I want kids and adults to think about why we hurt each other, and how we can build a world where we don’t.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on a number of picture books and my next novel. Some tie into my work as a doctor. Some are funny. And some are magical. I’m rowing my boat, like Nur in The Light of Home, into new territory. And it’s a wonderful experience!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Yes! When You Breathe is another stunningly illustrated picture book of mine illustrated by the inimitable Billy Renkl. And fun fact, he illustrated Reese Witherspoon’s 100th Book Club Pick, The Comfort of Crows, by Margaret Renkl!
For older readers, my Cybils award winning Wave continues the sea theme in verse novel form.
And finally, I’m over the moon for my first board and gift book publication, releasing Dec. 3, Already All the Love (Little Bee Books). It’s an ode to the present, to the wonder and love already before us, and between a mother and child.
I love speaking with audiences, as a presenter, panelist, or school visitor. If you are interested in exploring options, please reach out to me via my website, dianafarid.com. And for more of my book news, you can find me on Instagram @_artelixir.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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