Q&A with Priyanka Taslim

 

 

Priyanka Taslim is the author of the new young adult novel Always Be My Bibi. She also has written the YA novel The Love Match. She lives in New Jersey.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Always Be My Bibi, and how did you create your character Bibi Hossain?

 

A: I was inspired to write Always Be My Bibi after visiting a tea estate in Bangladesh. It was such a gorgeous place, visually like a little slice of heaven on earth, but Bangladesh in general is very underrepresented in fiction, especially in any positive way. I thought I could rectify that by setting a book there.

 

I knew from the start that I wanted to write a heroine who was a little like Cher Horowitz or Elle Woods, because you don’t often get to see girls like that who aren’t blonde (and thus, also white).

 

I then figured that placing a character like this into a Crazy Rich Asians-esque story of her own, with a snobby old money family as her foil, in a unique setting like a tea estate would bring the story together perfectly!

 

Q: How would you compare Bibi to your character Zahra, from your first novel, The Love Match?

 

A: I always wanted Bibi to be different from Zahra, which is why I made her a younger sister. Being the eldest daughter in an immigrant family very much informs who Zahra is, and her need to carry the world on her shoulders.

 

Girls like that—like I was myself—are often parentified and mature in many ways, while coming of age later in others because certain responsibilities are thrust at them while they’re sheltered from other experiences.

 

What Zahra and Bibi both have in common is that they’re spunky, funny, clever Bangladeshi American girls from the same town in New Jersey who have a lot of love for their families even when they lock horns, but that’s about where the comparisons end.

 

Because of her life circumstances—she’s the younger sister, she has a two-parent household, and her father is a fast food tycoon, so they’re very wealthy—Bibi is flippant and brash, doesn’t always take others’ feelings into consideration before making a move, and is more interested in boys and fashion than she is in cementing her future, which was a major concern for working class Zahra who had to defer her college dreams to take care of her family.

 

Bibi’s older sister, Halima, is more like Zahra, which shows in her being more tactful and anxious about the way things are unfolding while Bibi marches onward with nary a care.

 

However, I feel like Bibi was a breath of fresh air for me to write because she’s so different! I loved coming up with fashion-forward figurative language, rather than the literary references that Zahra makes that were more natural for me.

 

Since she’s the opposite of me in a lot of ways, it was nice to be in the head of someone who doesn’t brood quite so much, who is extroverted and friendly and pulls others into her mischievous orbit simply by being so charming!

 

Bibi is a little inspired by Cher, who is in turn inspired by Emma, so I’m sure what Jane Austen said in the foreword of her novel about her titular character is true—perhaps “no one but myself will much like” Bibi.

 

But I personally adored her and I’m glad she’s resonating with many readers even if she’s not EVERYONE’S cup of tea! More teen girls could suffer to know that everything will be okay even if they mess up sometimes and that there’s nothing wrong with being confident!

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Bibi and Sohel?

 

A: Bibi and Sohel are one of my favorite couples whom I’ve written about!

 

At first glance, they seem like polar opposites. Bibi is often oblivious to her own privilege, a little ditzy, immature, and friendly while being unselfaware.

 

Sohel, on the other hand, is a character who feels like he owes the world a lot because of his privilege. Tea estates are beautiful, but they have a fraught history that is part of his family’s history, as the son of a tea estate’s owner.

 

Although his parents want him, like his older brother, to live and be educated abroad so that the world can be his oyster, Sohel wants to stay in Bangladesh and make life better for the employees of the estate, and he resents his brother for being older because that means it’s technically not his responsibility.

 

He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty alongside the staff of the estate, while Bibi is VERY concerned about messing up her manicure.

 

I always joke that Bibi is a romcom heroine who absolutely belongs in her genre, but Sohel might belong in a historical romantic drama where he gets to air out all his feelings about being the spare to his brother’s heir and the moral quandaries of both roles, haha.

 

BUT, when you look a little deeper, Bibi and Sohel being soulmates makes a lot of sense. They are both younger siblings who are under the shadows of their seemingly more perfect older siblings. They’re different in ways that bring out the best in each other.

 

Bibi doesn’t look at Sohel and see his wealth or what she can get out of him. One of her best characteristics is that she may be filthy rich, but she’s bubbly and cheerful and is open to befriending anyone, no matter their status. With her, he can let his guard down and act his age.

 

Meanwhile, he opens her eyes to the struggles that people outside her small bubble face, because she’s pretty sheltered from being a private school kid.

 

I knew before I wrote the book that they’d be a black cat/golden retriever duo. The farm boy and the fashionista! The fried chicken princess and the pretentious tea prince! I hope people enjoy their banter and the slow burn of their developing relationship!

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the story?

 

A: The nerdy part of me hopes that the book makes people want to learn more about Bangladesh and tea. A lot of the complicated histories of places like Bangladesh and the realities of the people there connect back to Westerners who never really spare them a thought.

 

The book touches briefly on the independence struggle that Bibi’s grandmother lived through, but I doubt many Americans know that our government helped the people doing awful things in Bangladesh at the time, and this is something that happens all the time.

 

Similarly, a lot of writers make drinking tea part of their writing aesthetic, but do they know how that tea makes it into their cups and what someone went through to get it there?

 

The book only lightly mentions these things, because it’s a romcom, but I’d love it if it became a jumping off point for people to learn more on their own!

 

I also hope it helps readers be aware of the kinds of people and places that get celebrated in the media we most often consume, because Bangladesh is almost always mentioned negatively if it even comes up.

 

It’s the sort of place that gets a yellow filter slapped over it as the camera pans over squalor briefly while the narrator talks about sweatshops or drugs—as if those things don’t often exist because of foreign exploitation.

 

I’d like people to see Bangladesh and Bangladeshi characters as being just like anywhere and anyone else. There are so many uniquely enchanting things there, only some of which are shown in the book.

 

The people there are just as capable of starring in a love story as they are of being periphery characters in a tragedy. They’re funny and big hearted and it’s a place filled with beautiful clothes, magical scenery, delicious food—plenty to celebrate if you can look past things like Hollywood bias.

 

In addition to that, I wrote the book for teenage girls, and there are several things I hope they take away from it.

 

It’s okay to mess up; the world won’t end!

 

Liking “girly” things doesn’t have to make you shallow; the world just likes to deride everything pertaining to women, and teenage girls especially get unnecessary critique!

 

Be yourself—but don’t be afraid of becoming the best version of yourself, either. It doesn’t have to happen right away. Bibi is only beginning to grow by the end—but that’s normal.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently working on my adult debut, From Mumbai, with Love, which will be published by Macmillan! I think fans of my young adult books will probably enjoy that one too. It’s a family drama with a romantic subplot set in Mumbai, about a young American woman who is invited to meet her very wealthy estranged father and extended family there.

 

I’m also starting to dabble in future projects and very excited to get to explore new characters and settings!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I can’t wait for more readers to meet Bibi! You can find me on most social media under the account name @bhootbabe and I am always overjoyed to be tagged by readers who like my work!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Priyanka Taslim.