Q&A with The Unpronounceables author Balli Kaur Jaswal
We chat with Balli Kaur Jaswal author of The Unpronounceables.
A&U: Hi Balli! Thanks so much for talking with us. First up, can you tell us a little bit about The Unpronounceables?
BKJ: Hi! The Unpronounceables follows fifteen-year-old Navy, who’s used to shrinking herself to fit other people’s expectations. She enjoys a sense of belonging in her friendship with Pree and Shaz, and she is preparing for a bright future in a selective Maths and Science school. But then she discovers a passion for art history which upends everything she knows about herself.
The novel is about being seen and understood on your own terms. Navy is at an age where she's beginning to realise that other people's assumptions about her don't have to determine who she becomes. I wanted to write a coming-of-age story about that messy, exciting period when you're figuring out what you value, what you want to push back against, and which parts of yourself you want to hold on to.
A&U: What was the initial spark of inspiration for you to write this novel?
BKJ: There were a few different experiences that came together for me.
I used to be a high school English teacher at a school similar to the fictional Melbourne School of Science and Mathematics in the novel. Many of the academic pressures and conflicts around cultural identity my students experienced were familiar to me. I wanted to explore the invisibility and lack of autonomy that can come when parental expectations map out our futures, but also the exhilarating possibility of becoming who you want to be.
The idea of names became a way into these questions. When I did assembly announcements, I always took the time to learn how to pronounce students’ names correctly. A colleague once remarked that this must be easy for me because I was South Asian, as though I instinctively knew how to pronounce every “foreign” name. But what came instinctively to me was understanding how a student would feel having their name stumbled over in front of the whole school at a moment when they should be celebrated. It was about dignity.
My experiences outside of work found their way into the book too. There's a scene where airport staff are hostile towards Navy's family, inspired by an encounter I had in a domestic airport. Baristas sometimes leave my name off my coffee order, and I've encountered some remarkably inventive (and occasionally baffling) attempts to spell it. People sometimes mistake me for other Indian women, and I've been struck by how defensive and insistent they can become when I tell them they've confused me for someone else.
So, while the book began with names, it gradually became a story about something much broader: the things that give us a sense of belonging, like our friendships, our families, our ambitions and the futures we imagine for ourselves. What happens when those things are suddenly called into question? For Navy, the question isn't simply whether other people can pronounce her name. It's whether she can find a way to feel at home in herself when the version of her future that once seemed certain begins to change.
A&U: You captured the feelings of life in high school so perfectly (I basically felt transported back in time!). How did you go about capturing that?
BKJ: I think I was drawing on both memory and observation. I've spent a lot of my adult life in schools so I've been watching teenagers interact for a very long time! What I find fascinating about high school is how intensely important everything feels. A friendship that seems trivial to an adult can feel like a matter of life and death when you're fifteen. A tiny change in someone's tone can occupy your thoughts for an entire afternoon.
I tried to remember what it felt like to be that age: the self-consciousness, the intensity of friendships, the desire to belong and simultaneously to be an individual, and the feeling that everyone else knows some secret about how to be a teenager that you somehow missed.
I also wanted the school to feel like a real social ecosystem. There's the official hierarchy -teachers, academic achievement, school rules - but underneath that there's this whole other hierarchy of friendships, rivalries, and alliances. Navy is constantly trying to work out where she sits within all of those systems.
A&U: We love all the references to visual artists and art in the novel. Was that something you researched, or is it a passion that you've always had?
BKJ: It's a bit of both. I enjoy visiting galleries and honing my appreciation for art but writing the novel gave me an excuse to go much deeper into artists whose work interested me.
I wanted to give Navy a way of understanding the world that wasn't entirely verbal. She's surrounded by people telling her who she is, what she should be doing and what she should aspire to, and art becomes a space where she can make connections for herself.
But I also wanted to acknowledge that the world of art history hasn't always felt like a space that belongs to people like Navy. The canon has historically been dominated by European artists, while access to art education and the institutions that shape our understanding of art has often been tied to race and class. For Navy, a middle-class Indian-Australian girl who has never imagined herself as part of that world, discovering an interest in art history is both exhilarating and intimidating. She's entering territory that feels unfamiliar and, in some ways, not meant for her.
The artists in the novel aren't there simply as cultural references. I wanted each one to open up a different way of thinking about identity, beauty, rebellion, gender or belonging. I particularly loved researching artists such as Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, Amrita Sher-Gil and Emily Kame Kngwarreye and thinking about what Navy might see in their work. I was also interested in the way artists who sit outside the traditional European canon can complicate Navy's assumptions about what art history is and who gets to be part of it.
I also enjoyed the research because Navy's responses to art are sometimes quite different from the interpretations an adult might bring to it. She's not approaching these paintings as an art historian. She's looking for something that speaks to her and gradually realising that she might have a place in a world she had never imagined herself entering.
A&U: Navy is such a beautifully fleshed out character and she basically leaps off the page. What was your process like for writing her?
BKJ: I spent a lot of time trying to understand Navy's contradictions. I didn't want her to be simply "the girl who has experienced racism" or "the academically gifted girl.” Those things are part of her, but they don't explain the whole person. Like all of us, she can be generous and selfish, perceptive, oblivious, brave in one situation and cowardly in another.
I also wanted her to have desires that weren't necessarily noble. She wants to fit in. She wants to succeed. She wants to be understood, but she craves being left alone so she can figure herself out. And those desires can pull her in completely different directions.
A lot of the characterisation came from asking myself what Navy would do when she was under pressure. I find that characters become much more interesting to me when they aren't simply responding to a plot, but making choices that have consequences for themselves and for the people around them.
And I tried to stay very close to her point of view. Instead of deciding what Navy was supposed to learn, I wanted to give her enough room to make mistakes, change her mind and surprise me.
A&U: What do you hope readers take away from The Unpronounceables?
BKJ: I hope readers come away thinking a little differently about what it means to make an effort with another person. Something as seemingly small as learning to pronounce someone's name correctly can communicate: I see you. I think you're worth the effort. The opposite can communicate something very different.
But I also hope readers don't reduce the book to a lesson about pronunciation, academic pressure, or the lives of migrant teens. For me, it's ultimately a coming-of-age story about the sometimes disruptive process of becoming your own person. If a reader recognises some part of themselves in Navy then that would mean a lot to me.
A&U: And finally, what advice do you have for any writers that might be reading this Q&A?
BKJ: Pay attention to the things that won't leave you alone. The idea for a novel doesn't necessarily arrive as a complete story. Sometimes it's a question, an image, a conversation you overheard years ago, or an experience that still makes you angry or curious. I think it's worth following those things and asking yourself: Why am I still thinking about this?
And don't worry too much about having everything figured out before you start. A novel is such a long process that if you insist on knowing exactly where you're going from the beginning, you can sometimes leave no room for the book to surprise you.
Most importantly, stay curious about your characters. Let them be contradictory. Let them make mistakes. Let them want things that are difficult or even impossible to reconcile. The more deeply you understand why your characters behave the way they do, the more alive they will feel on the page.
The Unpronounceables
by Balli Kaur Jaswal
A modern-day Looking for Alibrandi meets Bend It Like Beckham, The Unpronounceables is a wonderfully warm-hearted and hopeful YA novel full of humour, friendships, family, art and a touch of romance.
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