THE WAY FORWARD, SAARA EL-ARIFI DECIDED, was to risk failing big. So it was that, as an unpublished novelist, she submitted to an agent she calls “the biggest dealmaker in Europe”, Juliet Mushens. It paid off. “I think she gets 700 queries a week, but she came back to me in 10 minutes and said, ‘Can I have the whole manuscript?’”
Life since has been a “whirlwind”, partly set in motion by El-Arifi’s own fierce work ethic. Her third novel , the opening volume in a new trilogy, follows swiftly on and, while she’s more than self aware enough to deliver this line in a self-deprecating way, there’s clearly a grain of truth in it.
