Fartumo Kusow is the author of the new novel Winter of My Spring. Her other books include the novel Tale of a Boon's Wife. She was born in Somalia, and she lives in Windsor, Ontario.
Q: What inspired you to write Winter of My Spring, and how did you create your character Rada?
A: The idea came after watching the news about the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls by Boko Haram. Like the rest of the world, I watched in horror. From Michelle Obama to Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and many others, people joined the rallying cry under the #BringBackOurGirls banner. It was remarkable to see global solidarity.
But as powerful as the campaign was, I noticed something missing: the girls' voices—their thoughts, their fears, their futures. I asked myself, If these girls could speak, what would they say? That question became the seed for this novel. I wanted to give voice to the real victims, to imagine their inner lives with care and truth.
For the character Rada, I wanted her to still have the innocence of childhood, as shown in her opening line when she says, “At the age of thirteen, I saw no enemy, I knew no fear.”
But I also wanted her to be old enough to understand what was happening to her and her friends at the hands of the kidnappers, and to grasp how wrong the community treated them after they escaped.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: What surprised me in researching this book was reading about how girls were treated by their communities after escaping their kidnappers regardless of where they were geographically. It was shocking to see how often the girls were held responsible for the harm done to them.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title of the book, Winter of My Spring, shows how winter freezes the land, and violence halts the girls’ growth. And yet, resilience rises like spring, thawing what was buried and allowing life to return.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: In Winter of My Spring, I knew how the story would end before I started. I knew the girls would regain their agency and take their lives back. However, I followed the characters’ lead and let them tell their story in the many drafts that followed.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am currently working on a new young adult novel titled Irrational Numbers.
The story follows a 17-year-old math genius who is trying to reconcile the gap between the working-class immigrant community he comes from and the wealth and privilege of the private school he attends.
As he moves between these two worlds, the novel explores identity, belonging, class, and what it means to be exceptional in a system that was not built for you.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Outside of writing, I am a storyteller, educator, speaker, podcaster, and the founder of the Sahra Bulle Foundation a not-for-profit organization that raises awareness about violence against women and girls, in memory of my daughter, who was lost to femicide.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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