IN BETWEEN PLACES

Ahead of the prestigious Women's Prize announcement this week, TMS talks to Afghan writer Aria Aber on her Berlin-novel Good Girl, exploring identity and exile, and why the publishing world should be enriched by refugee voices

- ADITHI REENA AJITH

ILA is 19, defiant, and growing up in post-9/11 Berlin—a city marked by chaos, diversity, and contradictions. She parties in the city's infamous bunkers, popping pills with her friends, while grappling with the weight of her roots. The daughter of Afghan immigrants who gave up everything—from medical degrees to financial security—to start anew in Germany, Nila longs to be accepted by the 'cool kids' of Berlin's underground, yet yearns for a deeper connection to her Afghan heritage.

In Good Girl (Bloomsbury), her debut novel, Afghan writer Aria Aber explores identity, and displacement through Nila's coming-of-age journey. Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, Aber is still wrapping her head around it.

The novel was a long time coming; before that came her poetry debut, Hard Damage in 2019. "I wanted to write a book that was centered around right-wing terrorist attacks and Islamophobia, because I saw the rise of those in the post-9/11 world that I grew up in," she says. Aber began writing Good Girl in 2020, during a period marked by terrorist attacks and hate crimes in Germany and personal grief after losing a close friend. "It was a very politically charged time. These channels of grief made their way into the text," she says.