Advice from IR Approved Author Mahitab Mahmoud: “Self-publishing is a learning process, but it’s worth it. You get to have a voice in a very competitive field.”

The Color of Our Names: Received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.

Following find an interview with author Mahitab Mahmoud:

1. What is the name of the book and when was it published?

   The name of the book is The Color of Our Names. It was published on February 20, 2026.

2. What’s the book’s first line?

   “Like every morning, Fareed wakes at 3 am before anyone else in the household because it’s the only time he can have the room to himself without interruptions.”

3. What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.

   This story unfolds between who we are and who we are allowed to be. Across Alexandria, Cairo, and New York, four interconnected lives confront the cost of silence, asking what it means to belong, and what it takes to choose the truth.

4. What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?

   What inspired me is my own lived experience. I have witnessed what it means to live with a hidden identity. In homophobic societies, you carry two names, two worlds, and two selves—along with the fear, silence, and double life that come with that. But you also carry love and, with it, the hope that it will one day prevail.

5. What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?

   There are freedoms that some people might take for granted, while others spend their lives longing for them. This book invites the first to imagine what it means to be stripped of those freedoms and reminds the second that they are not alone, and that their fight matters.

6. What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character?  Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?

   What’s most distinctive is that there isn’t just one main character, but four: Fareed, Nelly, Christina and Nouran. Each carries a different version of the same struggle; that is, how to live truthfully in societies that demand silence. They reflect a shared reality, one that exists across many societies but is rarely spoken about openly.

7. When did you first decide to become an author?

   When I started writing, I didn’t have the intention of becoming an author. I had a lot of feelings and experiences that I needed to process, and I felt that the best way to process them was through writing. So I wrote them down in the form of stories, and I shared them with the very few people I could trust. Years later, I realized that a lot of the questions that people ask me about my faith, identity, queerness, and culture are answered in those stories, so I decided to publish them for the world to read and understand what it means to grow up as a queer person, a woman, or a man in a society that trains you to be silent and mandates your silence for your survival.

8. Is this the first book you’ve written?

   No, it’s not. My first book is When Silence Shatters: A Collection of Short Stories.

9. What do you do for work when you’re not writing?

   I’m a full-time teacher. I teach literature to high school students.

10. What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?

    Being an indie has made me learn skills I never thought I would need. Self-publishing is a learning process, but it’s worth it. You get to have a voice in a very competitive field.