Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of your favorite books? We asked Namina Forna, author of The Gilded Ones trilogy, to share her experience with us. Read on to learn about her journey to bring her fantasy series into the world.
Behind the Scenes of The Gilded Ones Trilogy | A Q&A with Author Namina Forna
How did you feel when you finished the first draft of The Gilded Ones?
Excited. Relieved. Fearful. Honestly, I was an entire mixed bag of emotions.
I finished what I now consider the first draft of The Gilded Ones in March 2019. I’d written an earlier version in 2012 that went nowhere—primarily because the zeitgeist simply wasn’t ready for it yet. It was too feminist, too Black. Then 2019 rolled around. Back then, I was working at a shady clickbait company. And our bosses had informed the entire editorial staff that they were going to lay everyone off in three months and then rehire us all as freelancers. So I had a ticking clock.
I wrote the book in a month and a half. I was waking up at 4am, 5am, writing ten pages before work and then thirty to forty pages over the weekends. I was desperate. This was my last attempt to make my writing dream work before I gave it all up and went to law school. So when I sent the book off to my agent, at first I felt excited.
But afterward, the fear crept in. I’d spent, by this time, twelve years, just getting the agent. And then another year on submission trying to sell another book that ultimately went nowhere. So after the excitement and relief came fear, nausea, and depression. I spent the entire day talking myself off the ledge, telling myself it would be okay if this book didn’t sell. That I’d survive it.
And then it sold.
I cried so hard. Not just joy, but relief. Finally, I’d made it happen. I’d tilted the universe just an inch in my direction.
What inspired the trilogy?
Growing up as a girl both in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and Atlanta, Georgia. Growing up in Sierra Leone, I knew from day one what was expected of me as a girl. I was meant to always be subservient to someone else. Yes, I could have a career but that would never take precedence over being a wife and mother. Then I came to America, which I thought would be better. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was the same, just more polite. All the expectations people had about girls in Sierra Leone, they had in America too, but they prettified them with bible verses and fake smiles. And whenever I asked why this was, I was told that I was thinking too much, that I was the problem.
Then I took women’s studies classes and realized that everything I’d been butting my head against was a system. And if it was a system, I could write about it.
So I did.
How has each book shaped you?
The Gilded Ones was my primal cry of rage. I’d experienced so many awful things because of my gender, I wanted to write about it. To make it so that the next little girl who was being gaslit knew exactly what was happening. However, I’d always known that I wanted the trilogy to be about how patriarchy affected everyone across the spectrum, so when I wrote The Merciless Ones, I turned my focus to men and nonbinary and queer people.
Writing about men was the most difficult. Because of my experiences, I’d spent my whole life viewing men as people you navigate around. But now, I had to hold space for them. This meant that in addition to doing research, I had to spend a lot of time talking to men, particularly younger ones, about how being male had shaped their lives. That’s when I realized how messed up patriarchy is for men too. The one big difference, I found, was that because men benefit from patriarchy, they’re reluctant to even look at all the ways it harms them.
The Eternal Ones gave me my spirituality back. Growing up, I was never a believer. I just couldn’t see myself in Christianity or Islam, even though I was raised with both faiths. But in researching the trilogy, I had to research traditional African religions, particularly the faiths present in Sierra Leone. And for the first time, I could see a God that looked like me—a God that allowed for other gods and other beliefs. And for the first time, I felt comfortable in believing.
Are there any behind the scenes anecdotes you’d like to share?
My father died when I was in edits for this book. Then my older brother. Then my older sister. Then an uncle. It got to the point I stopped telling people I was in mourning because it was happening month after month after month. Honestly, I don’t even understand how I survived 2019. Mentally, I was gone. Emotionally, I was dust. There’s a reason why The Merciless Ones deals with mourning and grief. Those emotions, everything Deka experiences—it all came from a very real place. The anger, the rage, the self-destructiveness, I felt all these things during my grief, so I put them in the book. This isn’t a fun anecdote, but if you look at The Merciless Ones in this light, you start to understand why the book is the way it is.
