"How Can I Be Brave?": An Interview with Samira Ahmed of Authors Against Book Bans

I have an interview piece up today on the Chicago Review of Books and I humbly implore you to read it; not because I did anything spectacular, but rather because my interview subject -- Samira Ahmed, a Chicago author and one of the national leaders of the group Authors Against Book Bans -- is an absolute force of nature.

I've been writing about books on the internet for 17 years, and I've interviewed dozens of authors in that time, and I can tell you Samira is one of my all-time favorite interviews.

The piece is part of Chicago Review of Books' Reading Your Resistance series, and in the interview, Samira talks about a topic near and dear to all of our hearts: Fighting back against book bans.

Samira is as passionate as she is inspiring. I literally got choked up during one point in the interview, as Samira talked about how the current administration is emboldening book banners. Try this quote on for size:

"Authoritarians hate art and they hate books for a few reasons. For one, art shines a light on truth. Books shine a light on truth. And when you ban books, when you censor books, when you control what information people are allowed to have, you can create an ignorant populace. Books and art allow us to be fully realized. Authoritarians want to oppress us. They want us to feel downtrodden. But art gives us hope."

Another highlight is Samira's anecdote about one of her own books being "soft banned" in a rural red state school district because "there are no Muslims or Indians here." She said her first thought was "You have books with dragons in your library, but there’s no dragons at your school either." But the truly inspiring part of this story is the teacher who wanted her students to read Samira's book asked Samira, "How can I be brave?" Samira talks about how that question has stuck with her.

Let's all be brave. Let's fight back! Read the full interview here.