In case you missed it, Riz Ahmed and wife Fatima Farheen Mirza were the "it" couple at the 2021 Oscars [1], in large part thanks to an adorable moment captured by cameras, where Ahmed fixed his wife's hair [2]. Mirza, whose marriage to Ahmed [3] only became public news earlier this year, is actually an incredibly accomplished and creative person too, despite not being as much of a household name. She may not be an Oscar nominee, but she is a bestselling author and a rising literary star! Mirza hasn't shared a ton of info about her life so far, but here are five fun facts that will definitely leave you super impressed by her.
She's a Bestselling Author
Mirza is a published author whose first novel, A Place for Us, became a major bestseller in 2018. The book, which follows an Indian-Muslim family living in California, was the first book published by Sarah Jessica Parker [4]'s imprint, SJP for Hogarth.
Her Meet-Cute with Her Husband Is Straight Out of a Novel
Yep, Ahmed and Mirza had a literal coffee-shop meet-cute! "We met so randomly [5] ... We were both jostling over the same laptop plug points, like a very modern way of meeting," Ahmed revealed on The Tonight Show in January.
She Didn't Always Plan to Be a Writer
In a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Mirza revealed that her first career plan wasn't writing [6]: she was pre-med at first! Eventually, she switched focus to creative writing and then earned a spot at the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop.
"When I first moved to pursue my undergraduate degree, I was in agreement with my dad that I would become a doctor. But I was miserable in my pre-med courses, so I switched to creative writing. Saying that I needed to write this novel was jarring for us at first, but, in the end, no one has been more supportive than my family."
She Drew on Her Own Experience to Write
Like many writers, Mirza drew on some of her own experiences to write A Place for Us, but she insists that it's not literally autobiographical.
"It's both a novel that is deeply personal to me, and one that doesn't look anything like my life when you to consider the facts. The novel isn't autobiographical because the characters took on their own lives, they acted in ways that I never acted, but through them, the heart of it is very personal [7]," she told Read It Forward.
For instance, she told The Guardian, she drew somewhat on her own experiences wearing (and not wearing) hijab. "I wore hijab from when I was nine until I was about 22. It wasn't out of a lack of respect or care that I took it off. It was the opposite of that. It was because I have so much respect for hijab and for the women in my life who are devoted to it, that I realised my own personal relationship with it was not for the same reasons. It has made me who I am and it will always be a part of me, even if it is not visible to the outside world."
She Took Up Boxing as a Hobby
"As a kid my brothers played football, and every year we'd go buy them cleats for the new season, and I would see these pink boxing gloves and I would want them and I never got them," Mirza told The Guardian. "So now, not only is boxing a really fun way to exercise, it also feels like I'm allowing a younger version of myself to have what she wanted then.