Interview with Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore, an author to look out for
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Mrs Ottimofiore is a successful published author, journalist, conference speaker, researcher and economist who has worked and lived in ten countries on four continents. She is the happy mother of three children born in three different countries. She currently lives in Cascais, Portugal, with her half-German, half-Italian husband, and enjoys the sunny weather along with her passion for writing.
Mariam, which are your favourite flowers? (For those unfamiliar with the Italian language, let’s explain that your surname means “superb flower” in English.)
With the Italian last name of Ottimofiore, it is only fitting that I love flowers. My favourite flowers are lilies, especially white and pink ones. Every morning when I looked out of my bedroom window in Karachi, I would see them – rows and rows of carefully planted lilies in my grandmother’s garden next door. The lily, pale and delicate, with its trumpet-shaped flowers and long stems, represents my upbringing in the East and is a source of nostalgia and a reminder of home.
You were living in Africa less than four years ago; what brought you to Portugal?
I initially moved around the world for my dad’s banking career, so I was raised in Bahrain, the US and Pakistan. Then as a teenager, I decided to move for my own studies and my own career, which took me from Pakistan back to the US, and to the UK. When I married my half-German/half-Italian husband, whom I met in the UK, I moved to Germany for love. Not to Italy, but to Germany for love – what was I thinking? The following five international moves to Denmark, Singapore, the UAE, Ghana and Portugal have been due to my husband’s career in international shipping, which has seen us relocate to a big city with a big port every few years. In 2020 (in the middle of the pandemic and five months pregnant with our third child), I bid farewell to the dusty streets of Accra and moved to Cascais, Portugal with my family, due to another corporate relocation. I can never remember my new phone number, my address or my NIF number. Making a cup of coffee in the morning definitely requires an international adaptor or two.
Mariam, how do you manage the ups and downs of living abroad and moving overseas more often than most average expats?
I have been called a serial expat and wish I knew how to quit. Perhaps there needs to be a seven-step program to help serial expats. I manage the ups and downs quite simply by sharing them openly in my blogs and my writing, and by making sure to share both the challenges and also the opportunities. I also talk about the human side of moving and am an advocate for globally mobile families in the relocation industry. Your mindset is key: I always start a new life in a new country with the mindset that I am lucky and privileged. I get to experience living there and understanding a new culture, learning a new language, building community and making connections. I also share honestly the unresolved grief I feel at constantly having to say goodbye to the places and the people that I love. This is even more complicated while raising my three children (12, 9 and 3 years old), so I share my tips on how to move with your family in a healthy way (to allow for plurality of all emotions) in my first book This Messy Mobile Life.
How many languages can you speak, and how did this skill help you break the communication barriers within the local Portuguese community?
I enjoy learning new languages. I grew up bilingually in New York, speaking Urdu with my Pakistani parents inside our home and English outside our home with friends, neighbours, teachers, etc. And for the longest time, I took being bilingual from birth completely for granted. I also speak fluent Hindi (all four of my grandparents hail from India originally). I became fluent in German after living in Berlin and taking intensive German language lessons there. I think next up is Danish because I lived in Copenhagen for four years and took intensive Danish classes as well. I am semi-fluent in Arabic, I can read, write and understand it, and living in Dubai helped to perfect my speaking and pronunciation. I also have a decent command of Italian, although I have never learned it formally in a classroom or lived in Italy. I am an Italian citizen through marriage, so my goal is to always become better in Italian. I failed miserably in learning Mandarin when we lived in Singapore. Learning Twi in Ghana was hard, but I learned enough to navigate the local markets confidently.
All of these languages have helped me in learning Portuguese since living in Portugal as well, as I can find commonalities or similarities in sentence structure with other languages I speak. My modus operandi is always to master the small talk, the daily chit chat and to not worry if I make mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes, but that’s the only way to learn. I also find that my kids, especially my youngest son, who’s three years old, and was born in Portugal, help me to break the communication barriers with the locals, as they are so friendly and welcoming and love to ask us questions when we are out and about.
Have you always been attracted to reading and writing?
Yes, I have always been a reader and a writer. My family jokes that if I don’t get to read for at least one hour a day, I get grumpy. It’s true, though, reading is what keeps me going and writing keeps me sane. I wrote This Messy Mobile Life, which is part memoir, part guidebook, in the midst of making an international move from Dubai to Ghana and while I was writing about a messy mobile life, I was also living it. Sometimes life imitates art. My second book is my debut novel, The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye, which took me about two years to write. It was written here on the streets of Cascais and is set in Portugal.
Are you already thinking about the next book?
Yes. In fact, I am. I absolutely love to cook and find I can often best express my cross-cultural identity on a plate. I am interested in sharing the multicultural recipes from around the world that I have learned as a result of my global adventures and perhaps there will be a cookbook in the future. I would also like to write a collection of short stories or essays, perhaps ten short stories for the ten countries I’ve lived in.
What else do you like to do when you’re not writing or reading?
I love to travel, try out new recipes, catch up with friends, go on long walks and spend time in nature. I also love being a mother and family time with the kids is precious.
What is your message to the readers of Tomorrow magazine?
My message to the readers of Tomorrow would be to remember “home is a story that comes with you; it’s not a place you leave behind.” (The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye, 2024).
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Book Review: The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye, by Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore
Portugal seen through a “serial expat’s” eyes.
“For those who are brave enough to move – because home is a story that comes with you, not a place to leave behind.”
This debut novel has an inspired and clear-cut subtitle: “Three women. Three secrets. Three broken lives.” – the book cleverly reviewed in 7 words!
I’d classify this book under the expat-autobiographical fiction category. It is a novel, indeed, and (according to the disclaimer) none of the characters exist in real life.
And yes and no: Mariam is not Fatima, Kate, or Abena, but I can sense a lot of personal experience described in the book’s pages. There are parts of Mariam in every main character, and, as a result, the storyline becomes more credible. Isn’t it credibility readers expect from a good book? Trust is always built quicker when the audience can relate to the narrative.
The three stories coherently and convincingly describe the expatriates’ lives – dealing with some of the difficulties of moving with children, trying to learn new languages, and even fighting depression and loneliness. Fatima, Kate, and Abena are an amalgamation of Mariam and many women Mariam has met and known so far during her global life, this is a book about secrets, guilt, stress, negative emotions, and anxiety – the inner demons we, modern people, face and fight daily. And if you don’t believe me, read the author’s very words:
“(…) it takes guts to face your deepest, darkest demons. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that your problems don’t go away when you move countries.”
A book about demons, but also about closure, acceptance, and reconciliation with the past. I don’t want to spoil the pleasure of reading for the many of you who will enjoy it. Just one more thing that captured my attention: the book brilliantly ends with three multicultural dinner recipes featuring a common ingredient, rice, shared by three of the characters.
The book tells a real story about daily family life and tries to answer a fundamental question: Can we ever escape our past?
Five stars usually mean perfection, no faults, and excellence. I would have given it six stars if I could.
If, after this wordy consideration, you still want to discover Mariam Ottimofiore’s The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye by yourself, buy it on Amazon.co.uk with £4.99 (Kindle edition,) or Amazon.es with €13.78 (paperback.)
