How Hanna handles hysteria in her latest work

MALAYSIANSKINI | Writer Hanna Alkaf has been making waves of late… again.

This time, the recognition came when her young adult (YA) novel “The Girl and the Ghost” was included in a recommendation list for middle school readers published by the Oprah Book Club.

There has been some recognition for Malaysian writers writing in English, with names like Tan Twan Eng, Tash Aw, Saras Manickam, Zen Cho, Preeta Samarasan, and Aishah Zainal among those literary critics acknowledged in recent years.

For Hanna, this latest nod couldn’t have come at a better time as her latest book, “The Hysterical Girls of St Bernadette’s”, was released this week.

Not one to shy away from challenging topics, this new work sees Hanna take on the phenomenon of mass hysteria in a convent school.

It explores the complicated relationships between girls in that environment, and she also crafted the book while thinking of horrific crimes being perpetrated against women, especially against young girls, such as cases of grooming, manipulation, and sexual assault.

Hanna, the youngest child in a family of four, is a former Convent Bukit Nanas student who graduated from Northwestern University with a journalism degree.

After graduation, she worked as an online copywriter in Chicago for several years before returning to Malaysia to be with her family.

She was also formerly attached to Teach For Malaysia and was involved in the #kitajagakita social movement during the pandemic.

The mother of two’s previous works include standalone novels “The Weight of Our Sky” (2019), which was set against the backdrop of the 1969 racial riots, and “The Girl and the Ghost” (2020), which follows the journey of a young girl living in a Malaysian village, as she inherits her late grandmother’s special friend - a dark spirit disguised as a grasshopper.

Other novels are “Queen Of The Tiles” (2022), which is set in the world of competitive Scrabble, where a teen girl is forced to investigate the mysterious death of her best friend, and “Hamra and the Jungle of Memories” (2023) which is a sort of Malaysian spin on the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

She’s also penned the non-fiction look at mental health issues “Gila” (2016), co-edited the YA anthology “The Grimoire of Grave Fates”, and edited and wrote for the middle grade (MG) horror series “Tales from Cabin 23”.

A chat with Hanna

Malaysiakini caught up with the author, who is about to begin a whirlwind round of promotions for her latest novel. This is what she told us, in her own words:

It’s always an honour to be given any sort of recognition, and doubly so when it’s attached to a name as recognisable as Oprah’s!

I went into this whole writing fiction thing with very little expectations - I just wanted to tell stories - so to see my books be as well received as they have been always feels a little surreal. I’m grateful for every reader and every accolade.

I still have a deep appreciation for brilliant long-form journalism, but I have no regrets about the path I’ve taken or the way my career seems to be shaping up.

As for inspiration, whenever I embark on my next book, I’m always thinking about my kids and how I want them to be able to grow up, never having to search for themselves or their identities in the books they read.

There’s a tendency to look down a little on literature written for kids and teens, but to me, the books I read at that age are the ones that stayed with me and shaped who I am as an adult.

The “Hysterical Girls of St Bernadette’s” has just been released on Sept 24, and I’ll be holding launch events throughout October to meet readers and sign books.

Besides that, I’m the editor of an MG anthology of stories based on Southeast Asian mythical creatures called “The Beasts Beneath the Winds”, which will be out in 2025. And I have a couple of other projects up my sleeve that I can’t talk about yet!

Unfortunately, I don’t have a say in plans to adapt any of my works for the screen! There have been things brewing behind the scenes, but the journey from book to screen is long and paved with potholes, so whether things actually happen remains to be seen.

Learning and making art

I spent six years in Chicago, first in college and then working.

It was my first time living away from home; for the first couple of years, I had a sister a train ride away in a neighbouring state, but otherwise, I was largely left to fumble through and figure things out on my own.

I learned to be independent and adaptable; I learned to overcome my fear of speaking up in class; I learned that I really, really don’t like Chicago winters.

And all the skills I learned in journalism school: research, accuracy, how to ask questions, how to meet deadlines, and how to cultivate a nose for a story - are all still things I use as an author of fiction.

I don’t think there’s ever been a dearth of talent in the Malaysian literary scene; it’s just nice to live in a time when those talents are being read and recognised.

Between writing sprints, I spend a lot of time making art in some way - drawing or painting. I’m not formally trained and would never dare call myself an artist, but I find that focusing on doing something with my hands helps take me out of my own head and clears my thoughts.

Doing good

I think the idea of doing something “to make the world a better place” can be overwhelming because it’s so… all-encompassing. How do you even begin?

I guess what I’d encourage instead is to think about what you can do, in your personal capacity, to help at least one person every day. How can you lighten someone’s load? How can you make someone’s day a little brighter? It sounds trivial, but little kindnesses can have bigger ripples than you’d think.

My activism, such as it may be, is based purely on the belief that if you are capable of doing good and helping people, then you should be doing exactly that.

As such, it isn’t really a formal field - if I see a cause that I want to be involved in, or can help with by harnessing whatever public platform I have, then I’m going to do it.

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