In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Fatima Farheen Mirza Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Fatima Farheen Mirza
Photo: Gregg Richards

Fatima Farheen Mirza

How to pronounce Fatima Farheen Mirza: FAH-tee-muh FAR-heen MUR-zuh

Fatima Farheen Mirza Biography

Fatima Farheen Mirza was born and raised in California. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. A Place for Us (June 12, 2018) is her debut novel and is the first literary work acquired by award-winning actress and producer Sarah Jessica Parker as editorial director of her newly launched imprint, SJP for Hogarth.



This bio was last updated on 03/07/2018. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Fatima Farheen Mirza talks about her first novel, A Place For Us, which is the first literary work acquired by award-winning actress and producer Sarah Jessica Parker as editorial director of her newly launched imprint, SJP for Hogarth.

A Place for Us is set within a Muslim American family and their community, and explores many universal themes defining those important relationships: love and loss, familial and cultural expectations, honor and betrayal, faith and tradition. There's so much emotion within these pages. Did all of those elements evolve naturally for you as your writing progressed? 

While writing, I never explicitly thought about the characters in relation to these themes, only asked myself--what do the characters want in this moment? How are their needs and hopes in conflict with one another? But I believe that the universal themes you mentioned--love and loss, familial and cultural expectations, honor and betrayal, etc.--are found in every life, in every story to different degrees, even if the particulars of the plot change.

The novel is divided into four parts, with perspectives and voices from several main characters in this family: Layla, the mother; Hadia, the oldest daughter; Amar, the son; and Rafiq, the father. As this story unfolds, we get to see each character's point of view of the same situation, often a small yet pivotal moment in time. Was that a difficult balance for you as an author? Did one character's voice or ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Fatima Farheen Mirza at BookBrowse
A Place for Us jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Fatima Farheen Mirza but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Diana Abu-Jaber

    Diana Abu-Jaber

    Diana Abu-Jaber is the award-winning author of seven books of fiction and nonfiction, including Crescent and The Language of Baklava. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    A Place for Us

    Try:
    Crescent
    by Diana Abu-Jaber

  • Monica Ali

    Monica Ali

    Monica Ali is the daughter of English and Bangladeshi parents.

    She came to England at the age of three, and her first home was Bolton in Greater Manchester. Ali later studied at Oxford University.

    Her first novel, Brick ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    A Place for Us

    Try:
    Brick Lane
    by Monica Ali

We recommend 12 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

To win without risk is to triumph without glory

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.