YA Book Prize shortlist: Nadia Mikail in conversation about The Cats We Meet Along The Way

How would you describe your book to someone who hasn’t read it?

It’s a story about Aisha, who has recently found out that the world is ending soon and goes on a road trip across Malaysia to find her estranged sister. Along for the ride are her mother, her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s parents and a stray cat called Fleabag. It’s about grief and love and family, how to forgive loved ones who have hurt you, how to do better to those you hurt, and figuring out how to keep going when it feels like all hope is lost.  

What inspired the story?

I was away from my family, who were in Malaysia, and I missed them so much, so I started writing about being away from the people you love. As I was writing the book, the pandemic hit and the book became about so many more things, like fear and grief and a terrible uncertainty about the future. So your typical pandemic tale. But in all seriousness there is so much raw emotion I’ve experienced that I’ve laid bare in there, so I suppose it’s been inspired ultimately by all the love and loss I’ve ever felt.

Which character in the book is your favorite, and why?

It’s hard to choose. I think I’m too close to Aisha to have her as my favourite. I put a lot of myself in her. I suppose I’d have to say Walter, who I created by stealing a lot of my partner’s traits. He’s kind and patient and indecisive and an indulged, beloved son.

As for non-human characters, Fleabag is my favourite, because my cats have all been like them: kind of strange-looking, always hungry, sniffy one moment and affectionate the next.

What does being on this year’s YA Book Prize shortlist mean to you?

Oh, it’s so brilliant. It’s wonderful. The YA Book Prize focuses solely on teen and young adult fiction, which is so cool, and each year it puts together an incredible, diverse shortlist of the best of the genre - being a part of that this year is actually mind blowing. I’m alongside incredible and fantastic writers I so look up to, and I’m in awe and disbelief at that, and very grateful as well.

Oh, and the shortlist gives me a chance to attend the Edinburgh International book Festival, which I’m so, so excited about.

What’s the best thing about writing for young adults?

Trying to record just how possible the future looks as a teenager or young adult, how full of intensity and opportunity. How every feeling is dialled up to a thousand, and how there can be exhilarating moments, but also how these can be some of the worst years of your lives. Young adults have the fortitude to wade through the bad and still have the courage to fight for a better future, and I love writing about that hope. The best thing about it is trying to capture some of that overwhelming emotion, that mix of apprehension and anticipation. Even in – especially in – the strangest, hardest, and most impossible of situations.

What was your favourite book as a teenager?

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett for its humour and whimsy. The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien for its wit and worldbuilding. I devoured The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, it is lovely prose. I was also really into The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater – I love how she writes the dynamics between her characters, there’s so much that’s left unsaid there.

As a teenager I also re-read books I’d loved since childhood and grew to love them even more – Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, all Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I could go on but I’ve realised now you said ‘favourite book’ and not ‘endless list of favourite books’, so I’ll stop.

What’s your top writing tip?

Before I write I need to consume someone else’s writing. I need to absorb something beautiful so I can think: "I have to create something even half as brilliant as that, I have to at least try to bring that kind of beauty to the world." It can be a childhood book, or a favourite song, or a magnificent poem, or the fan fiction you read as a 15-year-old and have never quite let go of. And then I can sit down and start writing. I don’t know how useful this is for anyone else but it really works for me.

What do you need around you when you’re writing?

I can write anywhere, really. What I need isn’t anything physical, it’s more of a mindset comprising multiple factors that I need to be in and oftentimes find it difficult to get into – inspired by some great writing, ready to write, with enough time to write. Though I do really like a drink of something cold and sweet by my side. Having back support is ideal as well because I have the upper back of someone decades older than me. But I don’t take care of it like I should. I usually hunch over the laptop writing like a gremlin for hours and then lie in bed all night recovering.