Author Chat: Ahmad Saber on "Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions"
Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber
Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 2026
One thing I love about my reading habit is the joy of discovering a debut author who can write a novel that brings together so much of what I value: powerful and relevant themes, a dynamic cast of characters, and a bit of humour. As a bonus, physician-turned-writer Ahmad Saber is wonderful to speak with! I attended one of his book launch events and he's as nice in person as the very kind tone of his book would suggest. He was game to chat with me for an edition of my Author Chat series.
From the blurb:
Ramin Abbas has spent his whole life obeying his parents, his Imam, and, of course, Allah—no questions asked. But when he starts crushing on the ridiculously handsome captain of the soccer team, so many things he’d always been so sure about are becoming questions:
1. Music is haram. But what if the Wicked soundtrack is the only thing keeping you sane because you’re being forced to play on the soccer team? With Captain Handsome?!
2. A boy crush is double haram, and Ramin’s parents will never accept it. But can he really be the only Muslim on Earth who feels this way?
3. Allah is merciful and makes no mistakes. Then isn’t Ramin just the way Allah intended him to be?
And so why should living your truth but losing everything—or living a lie and losing yourself—have to be a choice?!
1. Music is haram. But what if the Wicked soundtrack is the only thing keeping you sane because you’re being forced to play on the soccer team? With Captain Handsome?!
2. A boy crush is double haram, and Ramin’s parents will never accept it. But can he really be the only Muslim on Earth who feels this way?
3. Allah is merciful and makes no mistakes. Then isn’t Ramin just the way Allah intended him to be?
And so why should living your truth but losing everything—or living a lie and losing yourself—have to be a choice?!
A bit about Ahmad from his bio: "Ahmad Saber is the author of contemporary young adult novels, exploring the themes of discovering identity and belonging. Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions is his debut and based on his lived experience as an immigrant and desi person of color. By day, he’s either working as a rheumatology specialist, or worshipping at the Temple of Taylor Swift he has built in his house. He lives in British Columbia, Canada."
This book is sure to be one of my favourite of the year; it was a page turner and I couldn't put it down. It's a YA novel that has broad appeal to all ages, and I'm betting readers will be cheering for Ramin as he stumbles his way towards graduating high school relatively unscathed, and finding happiness as he does it.
Be sure to visit my review here.
***
Ahmad: You are very welcome, and thank you so much for having me! This has been such a pleasure and so much fun. The best place to connect with me or find out more is on Instagram, which is the only social media I use: @theahmadsaber. Alternatively, you can find me on Saberbooks.ca, my author website, and use the email form to connect.
Trish: Congratulations on the publication of your debut novel Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions! It’s no secret that I loved the novel and the characters you’ve created. Did you always want to write? What was your inspiration for the novel?
Ahmad: Growing up, I had one and only one goal: to do as well as possible at school because that’s what was needed to become a future doctor. That did not leave much room for creativity. But there was always a certain attraction towards reading and literature. I remember reading Treasure Island for my Grade 7 English Class in Pakistan and being absolutely mesmerized by the world and the characters. A similar feeling happened with A Tale of Two Cities. I also remember reading Reader’s Digest several times. However, the pressure to do well in academia meant I had to part ways with anything that would take away from studying the “more important” subjects like Math and Science.
I had a brush with writing again in medical school where I wrote a short story and had received encouraging feedback, but again, the academic pressure did not leave room for creativity, and thus the creative itch only grew stronger, no longer suppressible.
During all this time, I had also been coming to terms with my sexuality that I’d long suppressed because it was deemed shameful and unacceptable. After immigrating to Canada as a 16 year old, the internal battle raged even stronger because homosexuality was not as taboo as it was in Pakistan, so I saw real hope for being my authentic self.
By the time I was in the final year of medical residency training, I had reached a breaking point - although I had come out once before, I felt pushed back into the closet and asked to essentially hide it. This time, I had to come out to myself and the world with pride. Through Ramin’s story, my long stifled feelings began to pour out and his story essentially served as a way to process my own struggles.
The exact moment of inspiration for this story was born out of a promotional video clip I watched of an Islamic high school in Canada. In this clip, the boys were having fun with their “brothers,” praying and playing together, studying together, going on field trips together, their faces bright and smiles full of joy. I then imagined how a closeted Muslim kid would feel in that environment, where everyone else would be oblivious to his internal misery and yet he’d need to put a mask on to blend in.
Trish: I appreciate how both your desire to write and your authentic self would not be contained, and Ramin’s story emerged as a way for you to understand your own life. Indeed, the central conflict of the novel is the tension between Ramin’s queer identity and his deep Muslim faith. This is played out in several relationships in the book, both compassionate and rigidly dogmatic. As a reader, I felt Ramin’s frustration when he went to talk to his Imam, Mufti Luqman, about being gay. He says he’s asking for a friend. Their exchange felt so real:
“...We can’t control who we’re attracted to. But by staying true to Allah’s will and fighting against his urges, not acting upon those urges, he will be handsomely rewarded in the Hereafter. This life is simply a test.” …
“But, Mufti sahib,” I say, pushing my chair back, “that’s like Allah giving my friend eyes and then expecting him to keep them shut for the rest of his life. Being gay is in my friend’s nature. He was born like that. How can we expect him to live a life without love? How’s that fair?”
He folds his arms across his chest and calmly says, “Sacrificing that kind of love for the love of Allah is part of his test. If he holds steadfastly to the rope of Allah’s guidance, Allah will never forsake him.”
I swear to Allah, Mufti Luqman is clueless about how this feels. To be told you can be gay only in theory.”
I felt Ramin’s dilemma deeply as he tried to explain himself. How difficult is it for queerness and religious faith to meet somewhere?
Ahmad: I think the level of difficulty comes down to the human will for acceptance and compassion, and for shedding the veil of ignorance. Dogma, especially if rooted in fear, can be incredibly powerful in informing religious stance on homosexuality. The fear of going against the “norm” or “traditional values” or leaving the familiar and comfortable behind is a real fear. But love is even stronger than fear, and if there's a will for cultivating empathy for those different than us, and if there’s a sincere effort to understand where queerness comes from and that it is not a choice but a natural, authentic state of being for many humans, there can certainly be room for more inclusive interpretations of religious faith. I have also found that a religious queer person themselves must first find compassion for themselves before expecting it from anyone else.
On the broader population level, at least in mainstream Islam, unfortunately it is still quite difficult for queerness and religious faith to meet somewhere, but not impossible. The long due conversations are finally happening, if even behind closed doors and in homes rather than mosques. So I have a lot of faith – no pun intended – in the progress that can be made in this avenue.
Trish: I have to believe that change, even if slow, can happen. Ramin strikes me as a truly joyful person at his core, and it was a pleasure to get to know him. Indeed, there’s a lot of humour in Ramin’s story to balance the pain. How deliberate was that?
Ahmad: I agree, he is just a fun and internally sarcastic kid, if overly polite on the outside! This was not planned or deliberate at all. It came down to finding the character’s voice and sticking to it. Ramin’s voice came to me in a few lines such as him thinking, his only friends are Allah and Wi-Fi, or how his bully Assim tends to spit and Ramin thinks to himself, “I’m trying not to take a spit shower.” I knew then that this kid would use humor to get through the darkest of times in his life, and that he’d be okay.
Trish: And to follow up on that point, I noticed you low-key have the teen lingo down perfectly in the book!
Ahmad: Haha I have to give credit here to the unforgettable teen characters I’ve met through books and Netflix, especially Simon from Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Margo Roth Spiegelman from Paper Towns, and superbly sarcastic teens like Felix, Lake, and especially Pilar from the Hulu series Love, Victor.
Trish: (Note to self: put Love, Victor on my watchlist…) How much was the character of Ramin modeled on your own life? Do you love musicals? Are you a secret soccer star? Can you fold a complicated origami figure in record time?
Ahmad: I’d like to answer this in bullet points.
Trish: I have my favourite moments in the book. One is when Omar tries to join Ramin’s origami club, which currently has one member. Which is Ramin. And the most emotional moment for me was reading the scenes with the compassionate Mrs. Saleh. What were your favourite scenes to write? Do you have favourite characters?
Ahmad: Haha yes I love how Ramin has the club open just so he can embellish his CV with it. I also really enjoyed exploring the compassion of the Saleh family. My personal favorite scenes to write were, in no particular order:
The novel is about a very specific young man. Ramin’s story is his own, a first-generation immigrant from Pakistan and from a devout Muslim family. That said, the core issues you’re writing about generalise to other faiths, and speak to both youth and parents. Did you make deliberate choices to appeal to readers of different ages, and of different faiths?
Ahmad: Hmm this also was not a deliberate choice but I think by prioritizing honesty and authenticity in my storytelling, there was the awesome side effect of universality. I think if a story is deliberately planned for themes or specific messaging, it may sometimes lose its efficacy (sorry for the doctor speak haha). That being said, both I and my agent Dan knew from the beginning that the story had adult crossover appeal and the potential of finding a readership much older than young adults, and if that happens, we’d of course welcome it with open arms.
Trish: I can assure you it does, as I found so much to connect with as a middle-aged person: remembering my youth in the Christian faith, and also reading this book now as a parent of a young adult.
And I can’t leave the story without asking you about the role that depression plays for Ramin’s dad. The family can’t even utter the word because there seems to be so much stigma, yet it totally makes sense that with the pressures of immigration, his dad would be suffering. How challenging is it to talk about mental illness in some South Asian families?
Ahmad: While things are slowly improving, I still think there is unfortunately a lot of stigma around mental health in the South Asian immigrant community and it remains challenging. In my experience and those of my friends, because there is a constant pressure to survive by overachieving, mental health struggles tend to be seen as unpleasant inconveniences in the way of the grand goal of career (and dare I also say, reproductive) success. Therefore, minimization of mental health struggles by parents is a major issue. They tend to think that depression can simply be fixed by “thinking positive thoughts.” It stems from a lack of understanding of mental health and certainly of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. For some reason, as Ramin says in the book, some brown parents think depression is a “western disease” and that people “back home” are never depressed, which is of course not true at all. The other challenge is spiritual bypassing of mental health struggles to religion: how could a soul get depressed if they’re close to God? This can also be quite harmful and prove a barrier in accessing much-needed help.
Trish: You’re a rheumatologist as well as being a writer. I’m wondering how you balance the two careers? Does your medical life inform your writing, or vice versa?
Ahmad: The medical world is just RIPE for storytelling and I cannot wait for all the trauma of residency training to inform my future novels! But in the case of Ramin Abbas, the correlation has been very minimal, if any. Of course Ramin wants to be a pediatrician and is a Type A student, but that’s the extent of it. With regards to vice versa, though, I can certainly say being a writer has helped me be a better doctor. Writing is just such an amazing tool for developing empathy and channeling creativity into understanding the human condition better.
As for balancing the two careers, this was an active decision on my part. I have not yet taken up a permanent rheumatology practice yet and exclusively work locum tenens jobs, which are usually short-lived contracts, and they support me financially while freeing up chunks of time to focus on my author life. I realize it’s a huge privilege and one I’m so very grateful for.
Trish: What are a couple of your favourite ever books? And what’s on your nightstand to read currently?
Ahmad: I’m still a relatively new reader, actually embarrassingly new, but I do have some favourites already (subject to change as I read more widely)! My top five-star reads are:
My current read is this amazing short story collection Entomology of the Pin-up Girl by author and entomologist (and a literary fiction genius!) Lauren Osborn, who writes about themes of feminism, sexuality, femininity and desire via stories that relate to insects (e.g. an emotionally exhausted wife who spins herself into a cocoon, while her confused and impatient husband watches on!)
Trish: More books to add to my own never-ending TBR…and Turtles All the Way Down is my favourite John Green book.
The transformation from an aspiring novelist to published author seems daunting. Also amazing! Was it difficult for you? How much doggedness did you need?
Ahmad: It was indeed difficult and I’ve lost track of how much rejection I’ve had to endure. But I used every rejection as a learning opportunity and once I accepted rejection on the path to publication as normal as breathing oxygen, everything changed. Yes, it would sting, but maybe for a few minutes and I’d be onto revising again, knowing something didn’t work in the craft. With this trial-and-error, I became irreversibly motivated and looking back, sometimes I can’t believe how determined I was!
Trish: What’s next on your writing agenda?
Ahmad: I have to write Book 2, which will be a YA, for my two-book deal. This story is about a Pakistani foreign exchange student who stays in the US for a year with an American host family, while dealing with shame around his identity and culture.
I’m also very excited about some top secret medical-related novels!
Trish: I for one cannot resist a good novel set in the medical world, particularly if it is top secret. Consider my curiosity officially piqued. Ahmad, thanks for talking with me today! Congrats again on the novel. Where can people find you to learn more?
 |
| Author Ahmad Saber |
I had a brush with writing again in medical school where I wrote a short story and had received encouraging feedback, but again, the academic pressure did not leave room for creativity, and thus the creative itch only grew stronger, no longer suppressible.
During all this time, I had also been coming to terms with my sexuality that I’d long suppressed because it was deemed shameful and unacceptable. After immigrating to Canada as a 16 year old, the internal battle raged even stronger because homosexuality was not as taboo as it was in Pakistan, so I saw real hope for being my authentic self.
By the time I was in the final year of medical residency training, I had reached a breaking point - although I had come out once before, I felt pushed back into the closet and asked to essentially hide it. This time, I had to come out to myself and the world with pride. Through Ramin’s story, my long stifled feelings began to pour out and his story essentially served as a way to process my own struggles.
The exact moment of inspiration for this story was born out of a promotional video clip I watched of an Islamic high school in Canada. In this clip, the boys were having fun with their “brothers,” praying and playing together, studying together, going on field trips together, their faces bright and smiles full of joy. I then imagined how a closeted Muslim kid would feel in that environment, where everyone else would be oblivious to his internal misery and yet he’d need to put a mask on to blend in.
Trish: I appreciate how both your desire to write and your authentic self would not be contained, and Ramin’s story emerged as a way for you to understand your own life. Indeed, the central conflict of the novel is the tension between Ramin’s queer identity and his deep Muslim faith. This is played out in several relationships in the book, both compassionate and rigidly dogmatic. As a reader, I felt Ramin’s frustration when he went to talk to his Imam, Mufti Luqman, about being gay. He says he’s asking for a friend. Their exchange felt so real:
“...We can’t control who we’re attracted to. But by staying true to Allah’s will and fighting against his urges, not acting upon those urges, he will be handsomely rewarded in the Hereafter. This life is simply a test.” …
“But, Mufti sahib,” I say, pushing my chair back, “that’s like Allah giving my friend eyes and then expecting him to keep them shut for the rest of his life. Being gay is in my friend’s nature. He was born like that. How can we expect him to live a life without love? How’s that fair?”
He folds his arms across his chest and calmly says, “Sacrificing that kind of love for the love of Allah is part of his test. If he holds steadfastly to the rope of Allah’s guidance, Allah will never forsake him.”
I swear to Allah, Mufti Luqman is clueless about how this feels. To be told you can be gay only in theory.”
I felt Ramin’s dilemma deeply as he tried to explain himself. How difficult is it for queerness and religious faith to meet somewhere?
Ahmad: I think the level of difficulty comes down to the human will for acceptance and compassion, and for shedding the veil of ignorance. Dogma, especially if rooted in fear, can be incredibly powerful in informing religious stance on homosexuality. The fear of going against the “norm” or “traditional values” or leaving the familiar and comfortable behind is a real fear. But love is even stronger than fear, and if there's a will for cultivating empathy for those different than us, and if there’s a sincere effort to understand where queerness comes from and that it is not a choice but a natural, authentic state of being for many humans, there can certainly be room for more inclusive interpretations of religious faith. I have also found that a religious queer person themselves must first find compassion for themselves before expecting it from anyone else.
On the broader population level, at least in mainstream Islam, unfortunately it is still quite difficult for queerness and religious faith to meet somewhere, but not impossible. The long due conversations are finally happening, if even behind closed doors and in homes rather than mosques. So I have a lot of faith – no pun intended – in the progress that can be made in this avenue.
Trish: I have to believe that change, even if slow, can happen. Ramin strikes me as a truly joyful person at his core, and it was a pleasure to get to know him. Indeed, there’s a lot of humour in Ramin’s story to balance the pain. How deliberate was that?
Ahmad: I agree, he is just a fun and internally sarcastic kid, if overly polite on the outside! This was not planned or deliberate at all. It came down to finding the character’s voice and sticking to it. Ramin’s voice came to me in a few lines such as him thinking, his only friends are Allah and Wi-Fi, or how his bully Assim tends to spit and Ramin thinks to himself, “I’m trying not to take a spit shower.” I knew then that this kid would use humor to get through the darkest of times in his life, and that he’d be okay.
Trish: And to follow up on that point, I noticed you low-key have the teen lingo down perfectly in the book!
Ahmad: Haha I have to give credit here to the unforgettable teen characters I’ve met through books and Netflix, especially Simon from Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Margo Roth Spiegelman from Paper Towns, and superbly sarcastic teens like Felix, Lake, and especially Pilar from the Hulu series Love, Victor.
Trish: (Note to self: put Love, Victor on my watchlist…) How much was the character of Ramin modeled on your own life? Do you love musicals? Are you a secret soccer star? Can you fold a complicated origami figure in record time?
Ahmad: I’d like to answer this in bullet points.
- Do I love musicals? Absolutely! I will never stop singing praises of Phantom of the Opera, which I think is one of the greatest pieces of art I’ve had the privilege of experiencing. I will also keep shouting from the top of tall buildings about the immersive spinoff of it, Masquerade.
- Am I a secret soccer star? Absolutely not. In fact, I had to learn about soccer in order to write the story. Although I do jump on the FIFA bandwagon from time to time. That Spain vs. The Netherlands final from the 2010 World Cup will forever be etched in my memory.
- Can I fold origami? Absolutely not, even if my life depended on it. In fact I couldn’t even make an origami heart. I had to teach myself about origami while researching for this novel.
Trish: I have my favourite moments in the book. One is when Omar tries to join Ramin’s origami club, which currently has one member. Which is Ramin. And the most emotional moment for me was reading the scenes with the compassionate Mrs. Saleh. What were your favourite scenes to write? Do you have favourite characters?
Ahmad: Haha yes I love how Ramin has the club open just so he can embellish his CV with it. I also really enjoyed exploring the compassion of the Saleh family. My personal favorite scenes to write were, in no particular order:
- The scene where Ramin feels conflicted about whether it’s sinful to listen to music. He plays a Quran recitation, and then he plays Defying Gravity from Wicked, and he realizes the feeling is the same: transcendence.
- The scene where Ramin musters the courage to visit a drag show at a gay club and meets a Muslim drag queen praying backstage on a prayer mat. In full makeup.
- All of the scenes with Sinbad, the horse! I’m obsessed with Sinbad. He is probably my favorite character, second only to Zayn, Ramin’s little brother. Zayn’s heart is full of both love and greed and I just wish I could pull him out of the pages and make him my own little brother.
The novel is about a very specific young man. Ramin’s story is his own, a first-generation immigrant from Pakistan and from a devout Muslim family. That said, the core issues you’re writing about generalise to other faiths, and speak to both youth and parents. Did you make deliberate choices to appeal to readers of different ages, and of different faiths?
Ahmad: Hmm this also was not a deliberate choice but I think by prioritizing honesty and authenticity in my storytelling, there was the awesome side effect of universality. I think if a story is deliberately planned for themes or specific messaging, it may sometimes lose its efficacy (sorry for the doctor speak haha). That being said, both I and my agent Dan knew from the beginning that the story had adult crossover appeal and the potential of finding a readership much older than young adults, and if that happens, we’d of course welcome it with open arms.
Trish: I can assure you it does, as I found so much to connect with as a middle-aged person: remembering my youth in the Christian faith, and also reading this book now as a parent of a young adult.
And I can’t leave the story without asking you about the role that depression plays for Ramin’s dad. The family can’t even utter the word because there seems to be so much stigma, yet it totally makes sense that with the pressures of immigration, his dad would be suffering. How challenging is it to talk about mental illness in some South Asian families?
Ahmad: While things are slowly improving, I still think there is unfortunately a lot of stigma around mental health in the South Asian immigrant community and it remains challenging. In my experience and those of my friends, because there is a constant pressure to survive by overachieving, mental health struggles tend to be seen as unpleasant inconveniences in the way of the grand goal of career (and dare I also say, reproductive) success. Therefore, minimization of mental health struggles by parents is a major issue. They tend to think that depression can simply be fixed by “thinking positive thoughts.” It stems from a lack of understanding of mental health and certainly of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. For some reason, as Ramin says in the book, some brown parents think depression is a “western disease” and that people “back home” are never depressed, which is of course not true at all. The other challenge is spiritual bypassing of mental health struggles to religion: how could a soul get depressed if they’re close to God? This can also be quite harmful and prove a barrier in accessing much-needed help.
 |
| Author Ahmad Saber |
Trish: You’re a rheumatologist as well as being a writer. I’m wondering how you balance the two careers? Does your medical life inform your writing, or vice versa?
Ahmad: The medical world is just RIPE for storytelling and I cannot wait for all the trauma of residency training to inform my future novels! But in the case of Ramin Abbas, the correlation has been very minimal, if any. Of course Ramin wants to be a pediatrician and is a Type A student, but that’s the extent of it. With regards to vice versa, though, I can certainly say being a writer has helped me be a better doctor. Writing is just such an amazing tool for developing empathy and channeling creativity into understanding the human condition better.
As for balancing the two careers, this was an active decision on my part. I have not yet taken up a permanent rheumatology practice yet and exclusively work locum tenens jobs, which are usually short-lived contracts, and they support me financially while freeing up chunks of time to focus on my author life. I realize it’s a huge privilege and one I’m so very grateful for.
Trish: What are a couple of your favourite ever books? And what’s on your nightstand to read currently?
Ahmad: I’m still a relatively new reader, actually embarrassingly new, but I do have some favourites already (subject to change as I read more widely)! My top five-star reads are:
- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi (I felt existentialism like I’d never before).
- All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (The prose was delicious!)
- Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier (She made me feel like a kid all over again!)
My current read is this amazing short story collection Entomology of the Pin-up Girl by author and entomologist (and a literary fiction genius!) Lauren Osborn, who writes about themes of feminism, sexuality, femininity and desire via stories that relate to insects (e.g. an emotionally exhausted wife who spins herself into a cocoon, while her confused and impatient husband watches on!)
Trish: More books to add to my own never-ending TBR…and Turtles All the Way Down is my favourite John Green book.
The transformation from an aspiring novelist to published author seems daunting. Also amazing! Was it difficult for you? How much doggedness did you need?
Ahmad: It was indeed difficult and I’ve lost track of how much rejection I’ve had to endure. But I used every rejection as a learning opportunity and once I accepted rejection on the path to publication as normal as breathing oxygen, everything changed. Yes, it would sting, but maybe for a few minutes and I’d be onto revising again, knowing something didn’t work in the craft. With this trial-and-error, I became irreversibly motivated and looking back, sometimes I can’t believe how determined I was!
Trish: What’s next on your writing agenda?
Ahmad: I have to write Book 2, which will be a YA, for my two-book deal. This story is about a Pakistani foreign exchange student who stays in the US for a year with an American host family, while dealing with shame around his identity and culture.
I’m also very excited about some top secret medical-related novels!
Trish: I for one cannot resist a good novel set in the medical world, particularly if it is top secret. Consider my curiosity officially piqued. Ahmad, thanks for talking with me today! Congrats again on the novel. Where can people find you to learn more?
Ahmad: You are very welcome, and thank you so much for having me! This has been such a pleasure and so much fun. The best place to connect with me or find out more is on Instagram, which is the only social media I use: @theahmadsaber. Alternatively, you can find me on Saberbooks.ca, my author website, and use the email form to connect.
***
A big thanks to Ahmad Saber for joining me in this Author Chat! I loved the book and hope that many more readers will have the pleasure of getting to know Ramin and his story. I look forward to reading Saber's next YA novel and the medical-themed books to come.
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