The Journey of My Debut Novel
My debut novel Call Her Freedom explores how people resist when their basic human rights are denied, bringing silenced stories into the world. Drawing inspiration from the independence movement in Kashmir, one of the most militarized zones on earth, I spent over a decade researching this novel, building deep friendships and learning about some of the most censored atrocities of our time.
My journey started in 2011 when I decided to embark on a research trip to Kashmir in tandem with a planned family trip to Bombay—three generations were meeting in the city my father was born in.
As a single mom with twin daughters in preschool, I was terrified of the 24-hour plane ride to India with 4-year-olds. My kids saw Bombay with awe and wonder. They marveled at the squat toilets (that now flushed) and implored that we should add a spray nozzle to our toilet. After some time in the south of India, I left my family in Bombay.
Landing in Kashmir, the head of surveillance for the city of Srinagar let me know that I was being watched. Wielding a pen and paper, I was considered a threat as I listened to the stories of Kashmiris. I met and developed a friendship with human rights defender Khurram Parvez, who shared how his grandfather inspired him to take up nonviolent resistance when met with violence by the occupying forces.
Interviewing family members of the disappeared, one woman told me how her husband didn’t come home after work and she looked for him for years. She and her son lived with the pain of not knowing what happened and also the hope that he would return. Every month, she held a photo of her husband in the square to bring his story and memory to the world. She told me she went to the mass graves and that she wanted to crawl inside and hug the bones. The state had verified civilian mass graves just days before my arrival, there were the bones of 10,000 Kashmiri men—fathers, brothers, sons, and uncles.
Led by the power and urgency of what I witnessed, I turned to producing radio, inviting Kashmiri people on air to share their stories. I was also inspired to write a novel, led by a distinct voice emerging from the occupied zone. Years passed and the novel was read and rejected by quite a few agents.
Returning to Srinagar in 2018, I interviewed torture survivors and human rights defenders. Men blinded by pellet guns, another who lost his leg from being tortured, a young woman going from village to village documenting the abuse shared how she had nightmares for months.
During the course of my research, journalist and artist Irfan Mehraj told me, “Kashmiris endure because we believe that the only way to respond to injustice and respond to tyranny and oppression is to be steadfast. When people think about the amount of torture people have faced you can only rise from it.” Irfan was arrested in March of 2023, just a few months after he was married. Khurram Parvez was arrested in November 2021. Both are currently incarcerated for their work defending human rights.
For storytellers in Kashmir, the stakes for sharing the truth are incalculable. How does one measure stolen time? The first months of a new marriage. A son graduating from high school. A daughter’s first day of kindergarten. Kashmiri children grow up watching graveyards populate their villages. As people are buried, the community holds their story. Oral history is one of their biggest weapons against India’s brutal occupation; the stories of the dead cannot be silenced.
Drafting Call Her Freedom, I wrote between worlds and polarities, capturing joy and grief. Despite rounds of rejection from literary agents, I kept going, carving out chunks of time to revise the novel and return to my research and find the beauty that exists in Kashmir—the countryside, the smell of fresh bread from a road stand, dear friends exemplifying courage.
My book finally found its home with Simon & Schuster after winning their Books Like Us First Novel contest, landing a book deal and an agent. After over a decade of research and revisions, Call Her Freedom is being released the same week as MLK Day and Inauguration Day, amidst the rising authoritarianism here and around the world.
Despite imprisonment of journalists and storytellers in Kashmir and other occupied zones, storytelling remains an act of resistance, as does love and human kindness. Art not only reflects the brutality of our world, but it allows us to envision worlds where our interdependence and care for one and other are centered—breathing them into reality.
Check out Tara Dorabji’s Call Her Freedom here:
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