PHOTO: Marina Budhos, author of acclaimed novels for young adults and adults, known for her lyrical voice and deep exploration of social justice and identity.
Literary Fiction Blending Identity Justice And Voice
Marina Budhos explores immigrant identity, moral complexity, and the power of storytelling through fiction and nonfiction that captures the lived experiences of young adults navigating difficult cultural and political landscapes.
Marina Budhos writes with a quiet, unwavering force—an author who listens deeply to the silences in society, then renders them into story. Her novels, rich with moral urgency and intimate voice, speak to the dislocations of immigration, the ache of adolescence, and the complicated search for identity in a world that too often demands certainty. Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, Budhos reveals how public policies ripple into private lives, especially those of young people navigating fault lines of race, culture, and power.
In We Are All We Have, she introduces us to Rania, a teenage asylum-seeker whose life fractures under the weight of political realities, yet whose yearning for poetry, memory, and connection continues to burn. This clarity of emotional truth, braided with the broader forces of history, is something Budhos consistently returns to—from Watched, which explores surveillance in post-9/11 America, to The Long Ride, a portrait of integration and girlhood in the 1970s.
Budhos also moves fluidly between fiction and nonfiction, often collaborating with her husband Marc Aronson on powerful works like Eyes of the World and Sugar Changed the World. Across genres, she reveals how the past illuminates the present, and how young people—especially young women of colour—can emerge as powerful voices in an uncertain world.
Through it all, Budhos remains committed to complexity: to rendering characters who are flawed, vivid, and whole. Her stories do not offer easy answers—but they offer something far more valuable: empathy, depth, and the quiet, necessary insistence that all lives are worthy of being seen.
What inspired you to write We Are All We Have, and how did you develop Rania’s voice and journey?
I had long wanted to write a novel about a teenage girl whose parents had sought asylum because of political reasons, as I felt that was a perspective I had not explored before in my fiction. One day, I was riding the subway in Brooklyn, and I had a sudden vision of Rania—I saw her, with her wild black hair, her fierceness, and I understood she was an aspiring poet. I knew, too, her father had been a journalist, whose life was in danger, and that the power of words is part of her legacy. I also wanted to capture the terrible chaotic period during Trump’s first term, when ICE raids were sweeping our cities. (Of course, it is far worse now)
Once I tapped into the energy of Rania—her desire to break out, to be free, at such a harrowing and fragile moment—I felt I wanted to go on the journey with her. I also wanted to capture a girl who is armored and tough, who in some ways has been deprived of her childhood, and who is able to find that part of herself, recover her lost memories of Pakistan.
Your novels often focus on immigrant teenagers navigating identity and injustice—what draws you to this theme?
When I began writing for young adults, I felt these were the stories that were not being told, not seen nor heard, and I wanted to fuse literary and lyrical writing with the edge of very real-world pressures that immigrant and first-generation teenagers face. I wanted to depict the diverse and complicated world that I think these teenagers are growing up in. I also felt that a lot of YA at the time didn’t depict the multi-generational reality for teenagers—the American image is one of being solitary and independent, but it is much more complicated and entangled for my characters.
In Watched, Naeem faces intense moral dilemmas—how did you approach writing about surveillance and trust in a post-9/11 world?
The novel began with hearing about an actual surveillance program in New York City, and again, feeling that it was not a subject that had been tackled. But it wasn’t until I was told about a young man who had become an informant on his own community that I felt I had a novel—precisely because this gave me a moral dilemma for Naeem to grapple with. And I was very interested in this question of what it means to be a hero for a young immigrant boy, who is aching for a father figure, a vision of manhood.
The Long Ride is set during the 1970s busing movement—what kind of research did you undertake to capture that era and its tensions?
This, too, was based on real local events that occurred when I was a child, and the experiences of growing up mixed-race, with other friends who also were grappling with their mixed identities during polarizing times. A friend’s parents were involved with the busing effort and they lent me all kinds of old clippings and fliers and that helped me recreate the era. I listened to music and watched old TV shows but I also just drew from the universal emotions of what it felt like on the cusp of being twelve into thirteen.
Your work blends fiction and nonfiction, such as in Sugar Changed the World—how does your process differ when writing each form?
Nonfiction can be easier because the subject provides a structure, though Sugar was daunting, given that we were covering 5,000 years of history. We grappled with the material for a long time and then I realized it could be a three-act structure. In so doing, I was bringing my instincts as a novelist – honing toward the evocative, the visceral, and the dramatic and then pulling back to provide broader context.
Many of your protagonists are young women of colour—how do you balance authenticity and complexity in their voices?
I think because I am truly interested in character, and how culture intertwines with one’s psychology and subjectivity, I try to stay alert to these details that can build a convincing and rounded portrait.
How has your experience as a Fulbright Scholar and your academic career influenced your writing?
I loved having an academic career—it provided a lot of grounding for me and the Fulbright was life-changing. When I was teaching, I could test out ideas, share what I learned creating books with my writing students, and since I write for young people, I was always in touch with their struggles and perspectives.
What advice would you give to authors who want to write about politically or culturally sensitive topics with integrity and depth?
Make sure that you understand your characters as themselves—they should never be just props for a larger message or political point. And if there is a cultural and/or political milieu you are depicting, again, don’t try to simplify to make a point—allow it to be messy, contradictory, with concrete details that provide the fullest portrait possible.
