A force in the busi­ness world, Aliyyah Eniath Ho­sein has al­so proven her met­tle as a writer of worth. Her lit­er­ary de­but, “The Yard,” pub­lished by Speak­ing Tiger Books in New Del­hi in 2016, is set in a tra­di­tion­al In­do-Mus­lim fam­i­ly liv­ing in a com­mu­nal ‘yard’ in Trinidad which delves in­to the com­plex­i­ties of love and re­demp­tion with­in Trinidad’s In­do-Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.

Eniath Ho­sein writes from an In­do-Mus­lim per­spec­tive of “East In­di­ans whose fore­fa­thers were brought to Trinidad from In­dia through the British colo­nial in­den­ture­ship scheme in 1845.”

Her nov­el ex­plores how “fam­i­ly, cul­ture, and tra­di­tion shape per­son­al out­comes”. It ex­am­ines the jour­ney of “break­ing free from im­posed bound­aries, find­ing sup­port, over­com­ing self-doubt, and be­ing true to one­self.”

This fam­i­ly saga in The Yard ex­plores the ten­sions and tra­di­tions of a de­vout ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly, of­fer­ing a com­pelling look at iden­ti­ty and be­long­ing.

The sto­ry fol­lows Behrooz, an aban­doned boy tak­en in by a fam­i­ly liv­ing in The Yard. Strug­gling to find his place, he bonds with Maya, a re­bel­lious girl and his guardian’s daugh­ter. Their re­la­tion­ship deep­ens, lead­ing to a night of ado­les­cent ten­der­ness. Fear­ing ret­ri­bu­tion, Maya flees to Lon­don to pur­sue her artis­tic dreams. Mean­while, Behrooz re­builds his life in Trinidad and mar­ries some­one else. When tragedy strikes, Maya re­turns home, forc­ing both to con­front their past and cul­tur­al pres­sures and to bury per­son­al pain.

This pow­er­ful sto­ry­telling earned Aliyyah Eniath Ho­sein spots at the Bo­cas Lit­er­ary Fes­ti­val and the Mi­a­mi Book Fair.

“Writ­ing isn’t a choice. It’s a ne­ces­si­ty,” says Eniath Ho­sein. “I wrote The Yard to cleanse my­self. For 30 years, I soaked in life’s mo­ments like a de­tached ob­serv­er. Even­tu­al­ly, those im­pres­sions de­mand­ed re­lease.

“These stored sen­sa­tions and thoughts turned in­to sto­ries. They in­sist­ed on be­ing told, and I let them flow nat­u­ral­ly.”

For Eniath Ho­sein, the “per­son­al jour­ney from ob­serv­er to sto­ry­teller is a tes­ta­ment to the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of lit­er­a­ture.”

The au­thors’ love for lit­er­a­ture at Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va and “study­ing Lit­er­a­ture at UWI was a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion.”

Eniath Ho­sein elab­o­rates: “Read­ing A House for Mr Biswas in high school showed me that a sto­ry from a small Caribbean is­land can res­onate glob­al­ly. “Read­ing Great Ex­pec­ta­tions made me en­vy Dick­ens. I want­ed to write that book. And Wuther­ing Heights by Emi­ly Bronte was my favourite.”

The Yard is an un­put­down­able work, a tes­ta­ment to Eniath Ho­sein’s com­mit­ment to lit­er­a­ture and her con­sid­er­able lit­er­ary tal­ent.

As the di­rec­tor at Eniath’s Print­ing Co Ltd and the founder of Sa­fari Pub­li­ca­tions Co Ltd, Eniath Ho­sein has spent 15 years mas­ter­ing teach­ing, print de­sign, pub­lish­ing, mar­ket­ing, project man­age­ment, and event plan­ning.

THE YARD

Ex­tract ex­clu­sive­ly for the Sun­day Guardian

“Guests sat ac­cord­ing to the un­spo­ken rule; the aunts took the chairs and their daugh­ters sat on the floor. The par­ty was sup­pos­ed­ly meant for girls on­ly, but Maya no­ticed the boys could peek at them from the low­er lev­el. And it was for that rea­son Aunt Maab re­fused to re­move her hair cov­er­ing.

Pri­va­cy was no big con­cern for the oth­ers, be­cause no one would feel right play­ing naughty games and mak­ing lewd jokes in Alia’s pres­ence. But Aunt Maab had oth­er ideas.

She opened the evening by col­lect­ing gifts and pil­ing them up next to a throne-like seat where Alia sat. The game was de­cid­ed; the bride-to-be would be asked a set of per­son­al ques­tions about her fi­ancé and would re­ceive a present for each cor­rect an­swer. Fauzia and Fiza were de­light­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of their old­er cousin’s se­crets be­ing re­vealed.

Alia was mor­ti­fied at the end of the game. It turned out that she bare­ly knew any­thing about her be­trothed. She didn’t know his favourite colour, or movie, or song. In fact, she was sure that he rarely lis­tened to mu­sic or watched tele­vi­sion. ‘It’s not rec­om­mend­ed,’ he’d say. He be­longed to that re­cent move­ment where young Mus­lims con­sid­ered every­thing out­side of their re­li­gion to be a cor­rupt­ing in­flu­ence. Alia her­self was much more care­free than that.

The on­ly ques­tions she aced were re­lat­ed to his hob­bies and favourite foods; and though she was sup­posed to col­lect two gifts on­ly, Aunt Maab gave her all the presents at the end. She blushed bright pink as sneaky bags re­vealed neon-red and see-through items. Her cousins trou­bled her to mod­el the lin­gerie for them but stopped when they thought she was go­ing to bolt from the par­ty.

The sec­ond round of games in­volved mak­ing bridal dress­es from toi­let pa­per and penis­es from plas­ticine; it re­sult­ed in bouts of laugh­ter. Aunt Maab even caught a cou­ple of the boys look­ing up at the com­mo­tion and rep­ri­mand­ed them.

Fiza and Fauzia were ex­perts at mould­ing penis­es and en­gaged in a one-on-one com­pe­ti­tion to see who could make the best one.

Aunt Lu­lu was mor­ti­fied. She’d as­sumed that her girls were too dig­ni­fied to en­gage in such be­hav­iour and scold­ed their ef­fort. The girls gave each oth­er a know­ing look, and Aunt Lu­lu had the strangest no­tion that what­ev­er she said was non­sen­si­cal to her daugh­ters.

Alia shunned the plas­ticine cre­ations but Aunt Maab did not buy her in­no­cent act. She thought that the girl must have been think­ing about penis­es all along and feigned not to.

Then came the ad­vice from the old­er folk.

‘A wife should al­ways obey her hus­band...’ Aunt Maab said.

Maya shud­dered at the thought.

‘Yes, re­mem­ber for you, your hus­band comes first, but for him, his moth­er comes first,’ said Aunt Ha­la.

‘And men love food, you must al­ways make sure there’s food,’ said Aunt Lu­lu.

‘And nev­er de­ny them in bed,’ Aunt He­ba in­ter­ject­ed. ‘It’s frowned up­on, lest they find some­one else.’

Maya’s un­easi­ness was pal­pa­ble. She was tru­ly sor­ry for her cousin; more­over, she knew she could nev­er be this du­ti­ful wife. The thought was just as re­pul­sive to her as it was twelve years ago.

Maya was re­lieved when the bridal show­er end­ed. She’d start­ed to feel sti­fled and all the rea­sons she left The Yard came flood­ing back.

She found the boys a mer­ri­er bunch. The girls joined them down­stairs, and Maya sat with Aunt He­ba’s three sons, who were hav­ing a rau­cous chat with Amir, the bride­groom. The boys and Amir at­tend­ed uni­ver­si­ty lo­cal­ly. It was through this al­liance that Alia met her beau.

‘You re­mem­ber when he first saw her?’ asked Arif.

‘Yah. He said she was okay.’ Za­ki laughed. ‘Didn’t think she was all that.’ He picked from a bowl of man­go chow. ‘Then the next day he begged all of us to go on a date with them!’

‘Like we all need­ed to date her,’ said Arif.

Amir, a state­lier com­pan­ion with a per­fect­ly round face, hood­ed dark-brown eyes, and a beard that reached the base of his neck, was mild­ly amused; but he wore a sil­ly ear-to-ear grin for his au­di­ence.

‘Said he didn’t like lo­cal girls,’ teased Za­ki. He punched his ad­ver­sary on the shoul­der. ‘Where is Miss Ara­bia now?’

Maya snig­gered at the thought of all three boys and Amir go­ing on a date with Alia; the un­sul­lied girl must have been pet­ri­fied. ‘So what hap­pened on this date?’

‘Let’s just say we didn’t even get to first base,’ said Arif. The boys laughed and Maya shot Arif a drop-dead look.

The par­ty was grow­ing in size. Behrooz had ar­rived and was greet­ed with high fives from Maya’s boy cousins. He sat across from her but avoid­ed her al­to­geth­er.”

End of Ex­tract.