I've been meaning to ask you (interviews)

There’s so much love and kindness and goodness.

I've been meaning to ask Sadi Muktadir

Apr 19, 2025

What is your first memory of existing?

When I was like 3, I would go to the park all the time with my older brother and there would be this other kid slightly younger who would always try to chase me and bite me. His older brother and my older brother would watch and laugh hysterically. I was so afraid of that kid catching me even though I was older. One day he cornered me in a baseball field dugout and finally bit me hard on the forearm.

What is your first memory of being creative?

My dad would bring home giant piles of scrap paper from work for me and my brothers to doodle on. I must have been no more than five or six, and it was so fun seeing a fresh giant pile he’d bring home to fill with colours and ninja turtles and stuff.

What is the best or worst dream you ever had?

When I was in high school, I had this dream that Hitler attacked my high school with tanks and an army and had blockaded the high school, not letting anyone escape and just starving us out.

Because it was a humanitarian thing, he wouldn’t fire on us (this was in Canada for some reason — dream logic).

Anyways, I found a secret tunnel in our basement and led the entire school out through this tunnel to the neighbouring high school. Once we were out, we surrounded Hitler’s army with a real army and defeated him or arrested him or something.

What is your favourite or significant coincidence story to tell?

One time I had a crush on a girl, and I didn’t know she had the exact same birthday as me.

Do you have a preferred emotion to experience and why?

Sadness for sure. I don’t know how else to say it, but I’m a bit of a problem. I’m addicted to misery and feel it so much stronger than any version of happiness I’ve ever felt. It’s so strong that I like it.

Can you recount a time when you were embarrassed?

One time when I was a kid, we were in gym class doing stretches and jumping jacks and stuff and my pants ripped, and the whole class heard it and started laughing.

The worst part was the teacher told me it was totally okay, but she put a hand over her mouth and started laughing too.

You were supposed to be on my side!! You’re a teacher!

Can you describe a strange memory of when something was the opposite of what you anticipated?

When I was a kid one time my dad told me he loved eating these sugar candies when he was a kid, and that you couldn’t find them here in Canada. He said that he’d beg his aunts and grandma to buy them for him, and he’d cherish each one as this delicious snack.

He was normally a pretty dour or regular guy who wasn’t really effusive about food, so I really wanted to try one, but he said you couldn’t get one here.

Anyways one day he came home excited and said he found them. He handed them to me and my brothers, and they looked like shining crystals. We ate them and they tasted like shit. They were just sugar cubes. He grew up in destitute poverty, and we grew up under Mr. Christie and Cadbury and stuff.

What do you cherish most about this world?

Honestly, so much. The way kids play soccer in the afternoon on a school playground, so organized, so disorganized. The way a toddler bursts out of an elevator in an office building, dragging his mom to play hooky. The way I don’t know what happens tomorrow. The way sometimes babies pose like old people. The way sometimes monkeys look like they know what they’re doing. When really old people strike up conversations with strangers like me. There’s so much love and kindness and goodness.

What would you like to change about this world?

I would delete the internet. I would delete AI too obviously. I would put a cap on how much money people could make but without telling them, because some people are only motivated by how much money they can make, and we need their money. I’d just take all their excess money and give it away to people who need it. Basically you have excess money if you start buying clothes for your dog. Create a rotating dictatorship too. Normal stuff.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Move out as soon as possible and be kinder to yourself. It’s okay to believe in good things.

Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not?

I believe in something. Not the dead ever coming back to visit us or send us messages, but we are stupid if we think that all we can see with our eyes is all that there is.

If you could send your love to anyone, who would it be and why?

Anybody who looks at me like I’m a human being and deserving of love and good things. I promise to earn it. I might fail but I’m trying.

Sadi Muktadir is a writer from Toronto. His debut novel, Land of No Regrets, was published by HarperCollins Canada and Hanover Square Press on May 21st, 2024. His short stories have appeared in Joyland Magazine, the Humber Literary Review, Blank Spaces, The New Quarterly and other places. He is a two-time finalist for the Thomas Morton Memorial Prize in Literary Excellence and twice shortlisted for the Malahat Open Season Awards for best short fiction. He works as an Editor, and continues to read and write. Find him online at @sadi_muktadir on both Twitter and Instagram.

Land of No Regrets A Novel by Sadi Muktadir

Buy Land of No Regrets

Publishers Description

Nominated for the Toronto Book Award

A heart-wrenching story of four students who find hope and kinship amidst the challenges of growing up at a harrowing madrasa in rural Ontario.

Nabil, freshly plucked from middle school in Scarborough, is struggling to find his place at Al Haque Islamic Academy. Between the intense religious studies and the new rules, he still longs for his past life of baseball, video games, comic books and girls. When he stumbles upon two students doing something they shouldn’t be doing, he quickly falls into their company and joins them in their misdeeds. Together with the new transfer student and unruly class clown, Farid, the group executes their rebellion.

One day, while exploring the madrasa at night, the boys discover the diary of a student who lived on the grounds when it was an all-girls’ Catholic school. Cynthia Lewis’s words connect them to a bygone era and inspire them to hatch a plot to escape. They form a pact, and together, their ultimate decision sends them hurtling down a path that changes their lives forever.

Strikingly original, and as poignant as it is humorous, Land of No Regrets is a vibrant, compassionate exploration of faith, friendship and the true value of freedom.

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