A readership survey we issued way back in January 2018 showed that alums wish to read more about the lives and achievements of fellow alums in Europe. Below is our tenth feature interview, focusing on Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore ’05.
Please get in touch if you feel your story would be of interest, or would like to recommend a fellow alum!
Spotlight on… Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore Class of ’05
Name: Mariam Navaid Ottimofiore
Class Year: 2005
1) Can you tell us a few words about yourself?
I am an author, writer, speaker, researcher and economist. I am Pakistani by birth and Italian by marriage, but my identity is not confined to the passports that I hold. I have lived in ten countries as both a Third Culture Kid (TCK) and an adult, including The Kingdom of Bahrain, the United States (NY, MA and TX), Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Ghana and Portugal.
Four continents later, my life on the move is messy. A 40-foot container, a husband from another corner of the world and three children born 3,000 miles apart in three different countries have added complexity, challenges and many joys to living a multicultural, multilingual and multi-mobile life.
I currently live in Cascais, Portugal with my half German/half Italian husband and my German-Pakistani-Italian kids, born in Singapore, Dubai and Lisbon. Passionate about languages and cultures, I speak fluent Urdu, English, Hindi and German with some Italian, Danish, Arabic and Portuguese on the side. I am an expert at making embarrassing mistakes in every new language I pick up, am perpetually lost in every new city I call home and can never remember my new phone number or address, or where I packed those suede boots!
2) What inspired you to write, and how did you find your voice?
Oh, I remember the exact moment; I had just moved to Singapore in 2011, had resigned from my finance job in Denmark and was five months pregnant with our first child – talk about a major life transition! I think it was my globally mobile lifestyle that inspired me to start writing, because I would move to a new country every few years due to my husband’s career in international shipping and would struggle to start off each new adventure redefining who I was – both to myself and to the world.
I would look for a corporate job, fumble a foreign currency in my hand, be lost inside a grocery store aisle looking for familiar ingredients, sign up for another language class, understand a new culture, help my child do their homework in Mandarin, try to create a community and support network of friends and think to myself that I couldn’t be the only one constantly living outside of their comfort zone and facing these challenges. I also wanted to find a community to discuss the incredible opportunities that such a lifestyle brought forward; the international travel, the global careers, the multilingual advantages, the wonderful friendships and the chance to experience motherhood in so many vastly different countries.
Writing helped me do both and finally gave me an avenue to find my voice, Initially I wrote a blog to provide tips, resources and support to other globally mobile families. Then I created my own freelance writing brand which focused on writing articles on moving, migration and multicultural identities for magazines, newspapers and websites. This led eventually to becoming an author and publishing two books on global living: This Messy Mobile Life (Springtime Books 2019) and The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye (Springtime Books 2024). Being a writer also complements my journey as a global citizen, as it helps me to make sense of my ever-changing identity, home, and sense of belonging in the world.
3) What books have been the most inspiring or influential to you and why?
There have been so many, and it is always hard to choose only a few. I think as a child growing up between Bahrain, the US and Pakistan, the book that inspired me the most was My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, which is a tale of moving to a new country but told through a child’s eyes. In this book, ten-year old Gerald relates the adventure of his family’s move from rainy UK to the sunny Greek island of Corfu in the 1930’s with incredible wit, humour and honesty that left such an imprint on my heart and mind as an eleven-year-old reading this book and filled my heart with a love for adventure.
Other books such as Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen hugely shaped me as a teenager and my ideas on love, womanhood and marriage, while as an adult I found myself riveted by non-fiction such as Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Amongst Worlds by Ruth van Reken and David Pollock. I call this book the ‘bible for anyone moving abroad with children’ because it taught me how mobility can shape my children and their complex sense of identity. Last but not least, fiction such as Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, which focuses on the underprivileged refugee experience, is a must-read for anyone like me interested in stories on moving and migration.
4) What is your perspective on the role of storytelling in today’s world?
I think great stories inspire us to see the world in a different way. The role of storytelling, in my opinion, is to promote three important things: self-discovery (which involves understanding your past experiences to create your future self), connection (which means using our shared experiences as a form of connecting with others), and ownership (asking ourselves who gets to tell this story?). This is of course something I’m really passionate about, making sure there are more stories told by a diverse group of voices, who can represent multicultural identities in both mainstream fiction and literature. As a writer, I believe storytelling is a huge privilege and increasingly important in our highly divisive and polarized societies for shared connection, empathy and understanding.
5) What has been one of the most rewarding moments in your career as an author?
There have been many incredible moments and milestones in my author career, especially during my international book tours. But I think nothing beats the feeling of hearing feedback from a reader who’s just finished reading your novel and says, “I’ve never felt so SEEN in a book”. For me, hearing this consistent feedback from readers around the world with complex and multi-layered identities who relate to my characters and stories has definitely been one of the most rewarding moments in my writing career. We all deserve to feel “seen”.
6) What advice would you give writers trying to tell their own stories about navigating multiple cultures and identities?
My advice would be three-fold:
First, stop doubting yourself or wondering whether you are the best person to write on navigating multiple cultures and identities; yes you are. You are unique and your story is unique so please share it with the world.
Secondly, it’s important to surround yourself with people (editors, beta readers, agents, publishers, publicists etc.) who understand or have experience of crossing cultures and feeling “in-betweenish”. Then you have the possibility to start on the same page, which can reduce a lot of unnecessary back and forth.
Last but not least, the publishing industry has a standard when writing about different cultures and identities, which is to ask some ‘sensitivity readers’ to read your work. Sensitivity readers are people from a particular culture or professional background who will read your work and make sure it does not in any way come across as offensive or misrepresent a culture or anything else. For example, I had six sensitivity readers for my novel The Guilty Can’t Say Goodbye, including two Americans serving in the Foreign Service (one diplomat and one diplomatic spouse), a marriage therapist, a Ghanaian woman living abroad in Germany, a Pakistani reader in Dubai and a Portuguese author and poet living in the US. This is an important step in putting your best work out there, which, you can be confident, has been read by many different pairs of eyes.
7) How did your MHC experience contribute to your life aspirations?
My time at MHC was special and shaped me in so many ways as a writer, but also as a person. After my global childhood, it was the first time I had left my home in Karachi to go on my own adventure with a blue suitcase in one hand and a one-way ticket in the other. It was scary and exhilarating. I enjoyed the thrill in anonymity and the excitement at the possibilities ahead. Although academically, I double majored in Economics and Political Science, I took as many English courses as I could, including one on Chaucer at 8:30 am in the morning!
I think MHC helped me figure out not only who I was, but how to build bridges with people who are different from you. I took spontaneous road trips to Connecticut with my American roommate, made friends with Bulgarians and Ghanaians and learned how to swear in Swahili. My MHC experience was the first time I had found my ‘tribe,’ ironically in sleepy South Hadley in Western Massachusetts. People who, like me, wanted to step out of their comfort zones, no matter how unnerving it felt. MHC was my first international tribe; and it has remained one of my strongest since. Having found like-minded people on one continent, I gradually learned how to do it over and over again, even through cultural barriers and language mix-ups. It’s no surprise that MHC figures in both my books and I hope any MHC student or alum will enjoy reading them.
Read more about Mariam and her work at http://www.mariamnavaidottimofiore.com
Interview conducted Spring 2025 by Zeynep Kurmus Hurbas ’96