An Interview with Muhammad Ali Samejo

Muhammad Ali Samejo is a seasoned corporate professional, published novelist, and training and development facilitator specializing in corporate skills training, English as a second language, and communication skills. He’s the author of two works of fiction titled Legends Of Karachi and Damaged.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

What made me write? To answer that question accurately, I’d have to go over a lot of background. My father was a very successful television producer and director for 30 years before he passed, my aunt is an academic-turned-author, and I’ve spent the better part of my life growing up on movies and TV from the 50s to 90s (Back to the Future is my all-time favorite movie). I spent most of my adolescence conjuring up random story ideas in my head, never really understanding what to do with them. Plus, I was a very on-again-off-again reader with my most recent reading spell starting in 2017 when I became an English teacher.

That’s when, in a random lunch-break conversation with a new colleague, we got to talking about the state of our local TV shows and how they were formulaic and toxic, and the conversation suddenly ventured into her asking me “Why don’t you write TV scripts?” And when I didn’t have a good answer for that, her next question triggered it all: “Why don’t you write books?”

Up until then, I had never once entertained the thought! Me? Write a book? Isn’t that something that great authors like King and Adams do? Where would I even begin? How would I even get published? What would I even write about?

But once I started, there was no turning back. I channeled every single reading and media influence I’ve ever had into a mostly cohesive story which took a lot of fine-tuning to become Legends Of Karachi. In a year, not only had I completed half of LOK, but I’d also started working on two new projects, one of them ultimately becoming my first published book, Damaged.

So yes, there are a myriad of influences over my writing, my dad and my aunt being the main ones as far as storytelling is concerned, but there are several authors whose writings helped me discover my penchant for writing off-beat and surrealist fiction, such as Douglas Adams, Mitch Albom, Stephen King, Arthur Conan Doyle, Poe, and many more, I’m sure.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

That’s a pretty varied list: I’d worked in the corporate sector for a good 15 years before transitioning into training and development, particularly teaching English as a second language. I’ve been teaching for 7 years with the last two also as a visiting faculty at a university. But funnily enough, I started my professional career as, of all things, an actor! A terrible one, certainly, but it paid me enough to buy some books while in high school. My father obviously figured I should try something in the media, but that didn’t really take. I’ve also done post-production work and even directed a couple of short dramas for local TV.

Tell us the story of your book’s title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

The first book I started writing is centered around my hometown, Karachi. So I figured it should have some allusion to that name. There aren’t a lot of stories set in my name, certainly not a gritty multi-genre adventure story like mine, but still, I had to set it apart from the pack. After scratching off a few working titles, I thought about my characters and how I wanted them to represent tales of ordinary people trying to overcome the challenges of a crime-and-corruption-infested metropolis like Karachi, and how one would tell others about them. Tales? Myths? Legends? That’s when I had it: Legends of Karachi. Stories, fantastical stories, of people just like me and you who decided they were going to fight back and take control of their lives, and ended up inspiring many others.

It was while writing LOK that I spun off into my other book Damaged. I love experimenting, and I found a theme to Damaged that I think is unique among short story collections. Not only are the short stories here conversations between two people (different in each story) but the characters are damaged, or traumatized from the experiences they’ve been subjected to. Bullying, sexual harassment, child abandonment, suicide, heartbreak, unemployment, death; there are various triggering situations that feature heavily in this collection. In that respect, selecting the title was actually the easy part. The real challenge was doing justice to the stories without trivializing the experiences, while also coming up with a cathartic conclusion.

How did it feel when you first saw your book cover? Or when you first held your book in your hands?

When (both) my books first came to me, it was surreal. Damaged came out during COVID lockdown times, which was a scary time as ever to even think of how anyone would get published. Seeing the printed copies getting bound up on video was another thrill. But once they arrived home, there they were, all shiny and magnificent! My daughters were the first ones to hog onto the copies once they’d gotten through all the bubble wrap, and they were so proud; definitely the highlight!

If your book had a soundtrack, what are some songs that would be on it?

Oh, that is a tricky one. LOK is a fast-paced and gritty book that I wrote fueled on a lot of rock music; there are even a few song titles I’ve mentioned in some of the chapters. I suppose a soundtrack featuring Linkin Park songs would probably be the best way to describe it as LOK is definitely a book full of angst and optimism, one of the biggest takeaways I’ve had from Linkin Park songs. Perhaps ‘Somewhere I Belong’ sums up one trait of myself and my book, as Karachi and its citizens are constantly trying to find their place in the world while I try to find my place in reading circles.

For Damaged, I would have to go for something orchestral or classical, a custom movie soundtrack with the likes of Hans Zimmer and Clint Mansell. Yes, I do visualize that far ahead, because I want to see my books reach that level of success someday (goals).

What is one thing you hope readers take away from reading your book? How do you envision your perfect reader?

Honestly, I think my audience is everywhere even if they don’t know it. Most people read fiction to look for escapes while my stories seem grounded in the real world (just a bit) but really, they offer a different kind of escape. Naturally, people from my part of the world (Pakistan, India, and so on) are ideal target audiences as they can relate to a lot of the stories and issues I’ve highlighted. But really, LOK and Damaged resonate with anyone who has experienced trauma and felt like things could be so much better for the world, and how sometimes there are no happy endings, but deserved ones.

What was the most rewarding/meaningful part of publishing your book?

Lots of things. I suppose it’s the idea that the product of my whacky imagination resonates with so many others who enjoy reading my books. Also, the joy of being an author is unlike anything I’ve experienced, as I’ve been part of panel discussions, speaking engagements, literature festivals, and more. At a couple of points, people have even called me their favorite author! That’s a completely surreal feeling: realizing that someone got into reading because they read my book.

Perhaps the most charming experience was recently when I was at an informal book club meet-up and I introduced myself, and a total stranger asked: “The author???” That was fulfilling!

The most profound and humbling one, however, is when I received a DM from someone I’d never met, and they told me how one of my stories helped them with the grief of losing their parent, and how I had captured exactly what they had been feeling and wanted to feel towards the end. It meant so much to me because it was something I had written based on the loss of my own father, and it helped me come to terms with my grief as well.

What new writing projects are you currently working on? Or, other projects that are not writing?

My third book, The Special, is still under consideration with my current publisher. It’s a neo-noir episodic crime series based in Karachi, Pakistan, with a Sherlock-style premise but with Moriarty instead as my ‘criminal consultant’ assists the police in investigating sexually motivated crimes.

My fourth book, Do You Bleed Green?, is a sports-themed murder thriller centered around Pakistan’s international cricket team and its aspirations for winning the World Cup. It’s presently a work in progress.

Are you a writer, too? Submit your manuscript to Atmosphere Press.