Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé is no stranger to pressure. As the British author enjoys a busy year with the release of five new projects that dip into new genres, she’s entering a new era of her career with the hope of becoming bolder with her work.
Àbíké-Íyímídé’s first encounter with pressure came soon after the release of her debut novel Ace of Spades (Feiwel and Friends, 2021), which was a William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist and earned an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens. It spent 10 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and Àbíké-Íyímídé was also chosen as a PW Flying Start. It was the kind of literary success a 21-year-old author dreams of. But the limelight soon became what she called “a double-edged sword.”
“On one hand, it’s the dream to have your first book do so well,” Àbíké-Íyímídé told PW. “But it sets up a lot of pressure. There are also so many eyes on you. It feels like both a blessing and I wouldn’t call it a curse, because it’s a good thing, but it creates more anxiety.”
After such a successful debut, there was an expectation for her sophomore effort to follow soon after, but Àbíké-Íyímídé needed time to “silence the noise.” Going from the independence of writing a manuscript with few expectations to knowing there was heightened anticipation for the next, she wanted to restore that courage in her own voice. She ended up taking a break which led to the three-year gap between titles.
“I started to reflect more on the journey itself and not think too much of the future and about imaginary problems that have not yet surfaced,” Àbíké-Íyímídé said. It was time well spent; she’s come out the other side with her first collaboration, a novella, two short stories, and her sophomore novel.
Where Sleeping Girls Lie (Feiwel and Friends), Àbíké-Íyímídé’s second YA novel, releases today in the U.S. The paranormal mystery feels at home alongside Ace of Spades, another exploration of systems of power within academic institutions.
“Where Sleeping Girls Lie is almost an extension of the same conversation I was having around Chiamaka, the main female character from Ace of Spades,” Àbíké-Íyímídé said. “I’m very interested in the psychology of the mean girl, but specifically what that looks like if it’s a Black girl.”
The novel follows new student Sade as she’s dropped into the academic shark tank of the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy. Grappling with the loss of several loved ones, Sade is quick to question the disappearance of her roommate, and her investigation cracks the door open on the academy’s sinister handling of its female students.
“While violence can definitely happen between girls in many ways, I felt like the patriarchy was different,” Àbíké-Íyímídé said. “I’ve always felt school was an unsafe space, because you’re told you’re meant to trust human beings and you know how human beings can be.”
A Plethora of Projects
Though her forthcoming projects The White Guy Dies First (Tor Teen, July 16), a YA horror anthology from BIPOC authors, and Four Eids and a Funeral (Feiwel and Friends, June 4) a collaborative YA romance, couldn’t be more different, readers have the internet to thank for their inception. Àbíké-Íyímídé met Terry J. Benton Walker, editor of The White Guy Dies First, and Adiba Jaigirdar, co-author of Four Eids and a Funeral, during the early aughts via Twitter, and those connections blossomed into both friendship and collaboration.
After bonding over their shared experiences as young Muslim writers at university, Jagibadar and Àbíké-Íyímídé “came up together” in the publishing industry, forming a friendship before either of them landed their book deals. During Àbíké-Íyímídé’s semester abroad in Amsterdam, Jagidabar came for a visit just days before the pandemic forced everyone into lockdown, and while spit-balling ideas, the seeds of what would become Four Eids were planted.
“[With] writing friendships, you always pose the question at some point [of], ‘Do you think we could write something together?’ ” Àbíké-Íyímídé said. “It felt like a very spur of the moment decision, but also inevitable.”
The YA contemporary romance centers Said Hossain and Tiwa Olatunji, who were once the picture-perfect image of best friends, but are now no longer speaking to each other. When Said returns to their hometown for the summer, it’s unavoidable that the two will run into each other, and their forced proximity forces the pair to confront the ashes of their friendship, and perhaps affords them the chance to build the foundations for something new.
Four Eids and a Funeral isn’t Àbíké-Íyímídé’s first romantic foray. Earlier this month, The Doomsday Date, was released for the U.K’s World Book Day. The campaign brings together a variety of authors to release stories that are accessible to a range of young readers. In The Doomsday Date, best friends Sanjeet and Sola have differing opinions on whether the world will truly end the following day as the news claims. In their alleged final day together, the duo come together to complete Sanjeet’s bucket list which, unbeknownst to Sola, includes revealing his feelings for his best friend.
Haunts and Heroes
Àbíké-Íyímídé’s friendship with Benton-Walker, who had been a beta reader for Ace of Spades, came full circle when an idea Benton-Walker had had floating around finally came to fruition. He gathered 13 authors of color and gave them two rules for their contributions to his YA horror anthology The White Guy Dies First: “We could do anything we wanted,” Àbíké-Íyímídé recalled, “but we’d have to subvert the genre in some way. And the white guy in the story has to die first.”
Àbíké-Íyímídé’s offering, “All Eyes on Me,” is a take on a classic horror trope: clowns. Helen is desperate to break up with her white boyfriend, and while on a date to the circus is forced to confront her true reasons for wanting a separation— all while a malevolent clown is lurking in the background. Àbíké-Íyímídé selected clowns as her subject because she wanted the challenge of facing a fear—but she admits that the writing process ended up scaring her.
“I don’t know why I put this on myself!” Àbíké-Íyímídé said with a laugh. “And actually, I tried to walk [it] back and say to Terry, ‘Can I do something else?’ And he was like, ‘No, you have to stick with it.’ ”
A much less frightening assignment arrived when she was invited to join the superhero universe for Marvel Press’s anthology Spider-Man: Stories from the Spider-verse. “I was researching how does one work for Marvel?” Àbíké-Íyímídé said. “I saw interviews with authors who had worked for Marvel, and they were like, ominously: Marvel approaches you, you do not approach them. I just waited and hoped and let my agent know, ‘If Marvel ever talks to you, I would love for you to tell them that Faridah exists.”
As it turns out, Marvel knew and admired Àbíké-Íyímídé’s work and invited her to contribute to an anthology highlighting different Spider-heroes across the multiverse. Àbíké-Íyímídé pens the story of her superhero “dream character” Zarina Zahari, the Black Muslim London-based gamer also known as Spider-UK. In it, Zarina has “to save London from a catastrophe, and then go to an Eid party after.”
“Because she’s still being introduced, you basically see her at her best,” Àbíké-Íyímídé said of writing about the pre-established character. “She’s about to celebrate with her community, and she’s also saving the world. It’s just like a snapshot of her incredibleness.”
Àbíké-Íyímídé’s big year highlights her desire to expand her storytelling abilities. Noting how Black authors “have been pigeonholed historically into writing certain type of stories,” she said that having the opportunity to write stories of pain, and love, and fear, and otherworldly resilience has been “refreshing. I really enjoy stepping into different lanes. I would hate to write the same thing forever,” she said.
And that aforementioned pressure? It hasn’t disappeared. But she’s working on no longer being afraid of it. “I’m trying to take leaps with things I’m working on,” Àbíké-Íyímídé said. “And [I’m] trying to scare myself a lot more into doing things that probably wouldn’t have scared me when I was younger, [but] that really would scare me now.”
Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. Feiwel and Friends, Mar. 19 $19.99 ISBN 978-1-250-80084-8
Four Eids and a Funeral by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and Adiba Jaigirdar. Feiwel and Friends, June 4 $19.99 ISBN 978-1-250-89013-9.
The White Guy Dies First, edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker. Tor Teen July 16 $20.99 ISBN 978-1-250-86126-9
Spider-Man: Stories from the Spider-verse. Marvel Press, Oct. 1 $17.99 ISBN 978-1-368-09598-3
