The Debut: Sibling Authors, Daniel and Dina Nayeri
Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 10/21/2009
Another Faust (Candlewick, 2009), the debut novel from the brother-and-sister writing team of Daniel and Dina Nayeri, is a retelling of the Faustian tale in which bargains are made with the Devil. It’s difficult not to be captivated by the charm and sibling dynamics of the Nayeris, whose work combines the contemporary sensibility of The Gossip Girls with a dash of the supernatural.
Dina is a graduate of Princeton who currently lives in Amsterdam. And Daniel lives in New York City and has been everything from a stuntman to a children’s librarian. The pair has used social media (twitter DinaNV or DanielNayeri), created play lists for their characters, and of course, there’s an Another Faust Facebook page. SLJTeen checked in with the duo to get to know more about them and their book.
I know that you both had an interesting childhood.
Dina: We were born in Iran and lived there until we were almost nine and six. We became political refugees because our mother was a Christian and her life was in danger. We spent two years moving around, trying to find a permanent home. We lived in refugee “hotels” in Dubai and Rome for two years waiting for England, Australia, or the United States to accept us. Thankfully, it was the U.S. in the end! We moved to Oklahoma and went to school there until we both moved to the East Coast for college.
Was there sibling rivalry?
Daniel: At first, absolutely. We fought over the strangest things, like who got to pick between two peaches or pencil erasers, because as refugees, toys and entertainment were limited. But when we got to the United States, we found our own interests and managed to stay out of each other’s hair, for the most part.
How did you decide to write a teen novel?
Dina: We first decided to write a novel, and didn’t think of it as YA until a bit later. We had a general plot and sketches of characters with particular desires, and when we brainstormed further we decided that they would most likely be teenagers and that the story would speak best to teens. After all, that is an age when many of us struggle with desperation and over-the-top dreams. That’s also a period in our lives when we really start to think about what we value in life, and what we would be willing to give up for our aspirations.
Do you think many of the readers of your book will be familiar with a Faustian bargain?
Dina: No. The idea of the series is to open the doors to the classics through modern retellings. We would love it if Another Faust was the reason someone read the original Faust for the first time. Our future books will be retellings of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and possibly Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We don’t need our readers to be familiar with the original tale to read the book, but we would like them to be interested in the original by the time they finish with our version. We want each book to be a gateway drug.
Was it difficult for the two of you to agree on a common voice?
Dina: We have very different writing styles and voices. At first, this caused a lot of debate (read: fights). But by the end, we found a process in which we both edited each other’s chapters to such an extent that the voices blended and combined to create one unique voice. When one of us edits the other’s chapter, we don’t do it just to pick out flaws. We actually have a mandate to go through and infuse it with our own voice, to add large chunks of text, and to make it flow with the voice of the novel. Plus, before we begin, we go through a very long discussion about what the voice will be, and we both have to conform to that when we write. Of course, that makes writing harder, because you can’t just let it flow out of you. You have to be careful to conform to the voice that has been chosen. That’s why this was such a wonderfully challenging project for both of us!
Did you each develop certain characters?
Dina: No, we both had a hand in all of them. There’s a bit of ourselves and each other infused into the characters. I definitely wanted to succeed as much as Victoria does, but I wasn’t willing to do anything for it like she is. I wanted to be beautiful like Belle, and sometimes found myself saying and doing things that I was ashamed of because it betrayed a desire for superficial things. I think every teen struggles with that. As for Bicé, she is the person I always wanted to be.
Daniel: There is some of me in Christian and Valentin. I was definitely the broody writer of mawkish poetry in high school, but I certainly didn’t have a way with the ladies, like Valentin. I did play sports, like Christian, but my writing side always seemed to dominate my imagination. As for Valentin ripping off Christian’s work, I bet I can find more than a few pieces of my early writing that could be described as junior varsity versions of Raymond Chandler, Terry Pratchett, or Edgar Allen Allan Poe.
What type of reader would enjoy your book?
Dina: We think that any teen who struggles with wanting more from their life would relate to the plot. Literary teens who love to read carefully and have an interest in the classics will have lots of fun with Another Faust. We hope that the sexy cover doesn’t make this sort of teen shy away from our book.
Your book has one of the more unusual dedications. It’s dedicated to your mom.
Daniel: We knew we had to dedicate it to our mom, but that just seems so schmaltzy especially since we already had the “Donnie and Marie Show” thing going on. So we transcribed our typical bickering, and thanked our mother who has put up with that sort of thing the longest. She’s also the one that plies us with enough sweets to sedate a charging rhino.
