I love the Portuguese word saudade. Someone once defined it as “memory of something with a desire for it.”
I've been meaning to ask Saad Omar Khan
I’ve been meaning to ask you is an interview series where Kathryn Mockler invites people to answer questions on being human
What is your first memory of existing?
My first memories of existing, oddly, was of a cemetery in Manila, where I lived when I was a toddler. I remember a beautifully maintained garden of gleaming white crosses on top of a lush bed of verdant, perfectly cut grass. This was during a pre-school trip (in retrospect, not sure what pre-school would take children to a cemetery for a wholesome outing, but apparently this one did). I remember veering off from the group and weaving through those crosses like they were trees in a forest.
It was only until I was older that I realized what that place really was: the Manila American Cemetery. Filled with the graves of American and Filipino veterans of the Second World War, it hosts thousands of the war dead, including those who died in the liberation of the country from Imperial Japan. Given the viciousness of the Pacific Theatre, I always think about that strange juxtaposition: that my earliest memory was suffused with such beauty despite the extreme violence of what that memory really represented.
What is your first memory of being creative (writing, art making, etc.)?
In Grade Three, my class was asked by my teacher to write a play. I wrote one (its title lost to time) about a knight killing a dragon. My teacher liked it so much she asked some students to act it out. I think that was my first taste of the joy of being creative, and the exhilaration of creating something that spoke to someone beside myself. Had my first book not been published, I would have argued that my artistic career peaked at age eight.
What is the best or worst dream you ever had?
The only dream I have ever remembered (and the worst one) was a nightmare: a clown with jagged teeth staring at me from outside an apartment window. The clown would just stare as he slowly walked toward the direction of the apartment, and I would just stare back, unable to move. If you’ve ever seen the movie It Follows, imagine the wraith from that movie in killer clown form.
Do you have a preferred emotion to experience? What is it and why? Or is there an emotion that you detest having and why?
This may not necessarily be a favourite, but I love the Portuguese word saudade. Someone once defined it as “memory of something with a desire for it.” I think we’ve all felt it at a certain point in our lives, that artful emotion that is part-melancholy, part-longing, part joy of return. In the rare moments I have felt that, it seemed that I’ve been living the deepest life one can possibly live.
The emotion I detest having is my sense of impatience. As I get older, I have noticed this feverish sense that I always need to be going someplace or doing some task, and that’s led me to be more impatient with people and circumstances than I care to admit.
What do you cherish most about this world?
Those moments of solitude I can find that are free of loneliness or disconnection: going to a cafe and reading a book, being a flaneur in an unknown city, sleeping under a ceiling fan on a summer day, etcetera.
What advice would you give to your younger self? Your younger self could be you at any age.
You don’t need to hold on to those parts of your life that cause you distress.
If you could send your love to anyone, who would it be and why?
Rahaf from Gaza. Those who know her story, knows why she (and so many others) deserve it.
Tell me about your new book.
My debut novel Drinking the Ocean was published in May 2025 by Wolsak & Wynn/Buckrider Books. Some describe it as a love story; I describe it as a story about love.
Drinking the Ocean by Saad Omar Khan Wolsak & Wynn/Buckrider Books
The day after his thirty-third birthday, Murad spots a familiar face at a crowded intersection in downtown Toronto. Shocked, he stands silently as Sofi, a woman he’d fallen in love with almost a decade ago, walks by holding the hand of a small child. Murad turns and descends the subway steps to return home to his wife as the past washes over him and he is taken back to the first time they met. Moving between Lahore, London and Toronto, Drinking the Ocean is a story of connections lost and found and of the many kinds of love that shape a life, whether familial, romantic or spiritual. As Murad’s and Sofi’s lives touch and separate, we see them encounter challenges with relationships, family and God, and struggle with the complexities facing Muslims in the West. With compassion and elegance, Saad Omar Khan delicately illuminates the arcs of these two haunted lives, moved by fate and by love, as they absorb the impact of their personal spiritual journeys.
Saad Omar Khan was born in the United Arab Emirates to Pakistani parents and lived in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and South Korea before emigrating to Canada. In 2019, he was longlisted for the Guernica Prize for Literary Fiction. His short fiction has appeared in Best Canadian Stories 2025 and other publications. Saad’s debut novel Drinking the Ocean was published by Buckrider Books/Wolsak & Wynn in 2025. He lives outside of Toronto and is currently working on his second novel.
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