"Things Left Unsaid" by Sara Jafari tells a deep, emotional love story with the power of friendship.
What was your inspiration behind "Things Left Unsaid?"
I’ve always been obsessed with love stories between characters with deep history, who over many years do not get together romantically, thought internally have feelings for each other. I actually wrote a version of this book back when I was a teenager, inspired by One Day. And it was the final scene of the book that I had written first, with the task to find out what had happened between the two main characters, Shirin and Kian, to bring them to this point.
"Things Left Unsaid" also tackles darker issues, such as microaggressions in the workplace (publishing, specifically) and racial bullying at school. I share some similarities with my main characters in the sense that I went to a predominantly all white school in East Yorkshire, like Kian, and faced a lot of racism, and like Shirin I worked in the publishing industry for many years and was very familiar with the microaggressions and lip service to being more diverse in the industry. So, these experiences definitely inspired and shaped "Things Left Unsaid."
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
Reading a range of books from a variety of voices is so important to me. One of my favourite things about reading is both the beautiful sensation of seeing yourself in a text, and also seeing other people, with backgrounds different to yours, and seeing them too. It’s cliché but reading does create empathy, and that’s why I’m always so keen to read as widely as possible. So, for me, reading with pride means actively reading books from, and about, a range of people.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
Mainly because in writing, we’re meant to be showing the world around us. I live in London, which is one of the most diverse cities in the world, so it makes that I show a range of people with different backgrounds. But as I said before, I think it’s also so important for readers to be able to see themselves, and their experiences, in books, whether it be big or small. Part of the reason I began writing was because I was so obsessed with YA fantasy books as a teenager, but they always featured characters quite different from me. I had to make leaps to imagine myself in their shoes. The effect of seeing yourself in books is to believe you’re deserving of being a main character – and that you are worthy of a big all-encompassing love story.
The main characters in all my books (including Things Left Unsaid) are British Iranian, as that’s my background. I adore that I get so many messages from readers saying they feel like I’ve copied and pasted their lives in my stories, or that it’s the first time they’ve felt seen as a British Iranian in literature before. This is so important to me and pushes me to keep writing!
What I do find heartening now is that the literary landscape has changed, and a variety of people are being published, so we can see a wider range of characters. I just hope this continues.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
"Things Left Unsaid" is a second chance love story, which starts with Shirin going to a house party in Brixton, and seeing Kian, an old friend she has not seen for 10 years. Between them there’s a lot left unsaid, and through the course of the book we see them reconnecting again, as well as snippets from the past in which we see what happened between them when they were teenagers.
Like I said before, some of it came from my own experiences, but what I really wanted to show in this book, though, was the impact of racism and daily microaggressions on a person’s mental health. But also to show some light – in Shirin and Kian’s love story. And how having someone who really sees you can change everything.
What can fans expect from your book?
A deep emotional love story – and story of the power of friendship. The story is in many ways a late coming of age story – as the characters are in their mid-20s – and I think we all go through a late coming of age in our 20s, when we realize things about ourselves that we didn’t know. But overall, I hope by the end readers see this as a heartwarming story, and feel encouraged to stand up for themselves as Shirin inevitably does for herself.
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
My next novel will be a young adult romantic fantasy novel called "Heavensent and Hellbent" which will be published in spring/summer 2026 in the US. It’s loosely inspired by Persian mythology, the story of Zal and Rudabeh, featuring an angel and jinn who were bound to each other, but reborn into this lifetime.
