Secrets and Truths: A Conversation with Salma Hussain

The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan

a middle-grade novel by Salma Hussain

Tundra Books, 2022

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Salma Hussain’s debut novel, The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan (Penguin Random House, 2022), is a middle-grade book about a young girl’s immigration and menstruation journey. The book was selected for the American Library Association’s Rise: A Feminist Book Project List and shortlisted for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People. Salma writes both poetry and prose, and her fiction has appeared in PRism, The Fiddlehead, The Humber Literary Review, The Antigonish Review, The Hong Kong Review, The Ex-Puritan, and Pleiades: Literature in Context. A chapbook of Salma’s poems will be published in summer 2025 by Baseline Press. Hussain lives in Toronto and can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/salma_h_writes/#.

Profiles editor D’Ann Drennan caught up with Hussain by email to discuss her book. This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

D’Ann Drennan: What inspired you to write The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan?

Salma Hussain: When my oldest daughter was five, she turned to me sleepily at bedtime and asked, “Mama, you were born outside Canada, right? Were you a regular kid just like us?“

That question was the spark behind the entire book. I wanted a child to answer my daughter’s underlying questions: In what ways are the kids who grow up outside Canada different? And in what ways are they the same? At that moment, I decided to write an entire novel in the voice of a child who was born outside North America and immigrated here in her teens, just like I did.

Another driving motivator behind this novel was that, when I was growing up, my parents were such enigmas to me; I didn’t want that same mystery and unrelatability for my own daughters.

That said, the book ended up taking on a life of its own and went on a journey—from being a more-or-less straightforward autobiographical story to something much more fun and fictional. The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan now captures the reality of my immigration journey more realistically than the truth ever could.

DD: Your fiction sounds so realistic. How much of your life do you bring to your book? Did you ever get in a hair-pulling fight at school or know a one-legged imam like you describe?

SH: The bare-bones skeleton of this story certainly mirrors my own lived experience: I grew up in the Middle East, in the country of the United Arab Emirates, though I wasn’t in the city of Dubai for the majority of my time. Ethnically, my parents are from India, and we did indeed spend our summers with extended family in Pakistan. We eventually immigrated to Canada after living almost two years in Los Angeles! I spent eighth grade and half of my freshman year of high school in Torrance in south LA, and that is material I’m saving for an entirely different book.

As for the rest, and I hope this is not too disappointing, but here goes: there was a cute boy named Waleed in my school, but I never spoke to him; no Maryam in my class; and no competitiveness or hair-pulling scene occurred in my life. The truth is I am much too timid for such stuff. There was also no one-legged imam that I chased and threw tomatoes at, though this is a shenanigan my mother and her siblings partook in during their childhood, nor did I have a crush named Adam in my teen years.

I don’t remember when I got my first period, and the tampon scene Mona experiences—when her father is convinced he’s found a joint in her backpack—is a wholly imagined, yet entirely plausible, scenario created for comic appeal. Also, if you met me, you’d know I’m much too short to have ever made a school basketball team. Growing up, I had a strained and complicated relationship with my father—who was mostly absent—so it’s surprising to me what a big role the father character plays in Mona’s life.

Much of what happens in Mona’s life is influenced by scenes in books I love. There are only two events based in reality, and I wrote them pretty much verbatim as they occurred in my own life: (1) when the teacher accuses Mona of cheating because her poem was too good—“You can’t even look me in the eye, you barely speak any English, and you just moved here from the United States of Aye-rubs“ (p. 234); and (2) the substitute teacher from India and his use of “focus“—“He didn’t know that his accent emphasized the first half of the word in a most unfortunate manner. Foc-us, indeed“ (p. 239).

And oh! You should also know that my younger sister and I were as thick as thieves when we were children. I had no greater friend, confidante, or playmate. Mona’s relationship with her younger sibling is wholly made up for comic appeal because I could think of no funnier thing than an older sister who thinks she’s too cool to spend time with her younger sister.

DD: You touch on a difficult subject with the character Uncle Annoying. Tell me more about what you consider when writing about potential molestation for a target audience of middle-school children. Have you experienced pushback from parents who would rather ignore this topic?

SH: Oh, thank you so much for asking about this. Including the topic of potential molestation by inappropriate/creepy/icky adult figures was very important to me, and I’m so proud that this book presents this topic, however lightly and benignly.

I originally wrote a much darker storyline about this. My editor wisely advised me that this wouldn’t fly for middle school children, so we ended up cutting the darker scenes. Nothing “bad“ happens in this story except that Mona labels an uncle “annoying” for his uncomfortable behavior and speaks up to her mother about the inappropriate attention he shows to her younger sister. He is removed from their lives, and there could be no easier, happier ending.

I’m proud that young readers who read this book are given access to new vocabulary that will enable them to speak up about an “uncle annoying“ in their lives. I want kids to notice when behavior or comments feel “off“ and to talk to a trusted adult about any and all concerning adult behavior, even when they are not the target of that harassment. 

During my undergrad years, which was a long time ago, I worked at a summer camp for immigrant and refugee kids, and I can tell you that while the problem of childhood sexual abuse is universal, the silence and shame around it is amplified in a complicated way if one comes from a marginalized community. Children from marginalized communities often tend to self-censor and silence themselves so that they don’t contribute further to damaging narratives about their cultures and communities.

I could have painted a sanitized or rosy picture of growing up female in the Middle East. Many authors do, but such a rendering is not only incomplete, it is also unjust. We rob children of the “mirrors and windows“ they need to navigate complex and grim realities.

Luckily, I’ve only had one father and fellow writer express displeasure and say that I should have left this storyline out. That is certainly his prerogative. All I know is that silence exacerbates this issue, so I hope for him and his loved ones that no one they know encounters molestation in their lifetimes.

DD: I died laughing when I read, “What I still don’t understand is how my pee and the blood comes out of the same hole . . . or are there two different holes??“ (p. 145). Oh my goodness! As a child of the seventies, I had the same question for many more years than I should have. Tell me about why you think it’s important for young girls (and boys!) to read about menstruation.

SH: The reason it’s important for young boys and girls to learn about menstruation is captured in a poem that Mona writes:

For too long, the female body has been the site of sin and shame, and as a society, we have been too squeamish/too prudish/too misogynistic to properly understand and explore it, let alone celebrate and adore it. On an individual level, not understanding female anatomy impacts our personal and sexual health decisions and, of course, the medical care we expect and accept for ourselves, our mothers, sisters, and daughters.

In her diary, Mona talks about her ignorance about menstruation and the female anatomy with candor. This hopefully encourages all readers from all cultures and backgrounds to question their own perceptions and relationships with female bodies. I’m hoping a child’s innocent curiosity disrupts and jostles us into shifting our mindset towards better understanding, celebrating, and adoring our female bodies.

DD: Have your children read this book? What ages are they? What did they say about it?

SH: I have two daughters, now aged 13 and 11. The older one read it when it first came out, and her feedback was, “Add more cats.“

Despite my best efforts, I remain a mystery and enigma to my children, for I see now that I didn’t write this book for my children at all. I wrote it for the little girl in me.