Erum Shazia Hasan discusses the intimate power dynamics of charity in her debut novel

As someone who has devoted much of their adult life to humanitarian efforts, Erum Shazia Hasan is no stranger to the complexities of well-meaning do-gooders. In her debut novel, We Meant Well, the protagonist Maya is tasked with uncovering the truth behind the community and relationships she once knew.  

Hasan is a Toronto-based writer and a sustainable development consultant for various UN agencies. Her debut novel, We Meant Well, was longlisted for the 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

• Erum Shazia Hasan points a critical eye at humanitarian aid in novel We Meant Well

We Meant Well is a novel that poses a difficult moral dilemma for its protagonist, Maya, an aid worker who must decide who to believe when her coworker at the orphanage, Marc, is accused of assaulting her former protégé, Lele. Caught between worlds with protests raging outside the orphanage, Maya must also balance the fate of the organization against the accusations.

Navigating around these variables provides both challenge and insight as the complexity of the situation reveals the character of everyone involved. The Next Chapter's Ali Hassan spoke with the Toronto writer about the purpose and power of aid work.

How did your career experiences shape the story in We Meant Well? 

The job of a sustainable development consultant means that I get to travel to many different countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. That experience allowed me to meet so many different humanitarian aid workers that are working in countries that are not their own. 

They're not there as migrants and they're not there as expats, but they're there to do good, so to speak.

I was fascinated by this cohort of people who are in this bizarre space between their own countries and the places where they work. I wanted to capture a little bit of the dynamic that they have with the people that they work with — and for —as well as to showcase the nuances and how they all interact with each other.

That village that you created for the novel is in a fictional country called Likanni. Can you describe the setting and what you drew on when you were fleshing out this fictional town?

Likanni is basically an artificial place in an artificial continent and the reason I didn't want to specify a particular place was because I didn't want to represent another culture. I didn't want to represent a different country.

Especially in literature, if we write about places that are not covered in the mainstream, they become a sort of ambassador of a particular people or culture; I did not want that role. I instead drew upon the experiences of various postcolonial societies and picked up on common threads that I saw there.

I found that there were certain similarities of societies that had been colonized so I drew on that to build Likanni.

If we write about places that are not covered in the mainstream, they become a sort of ambassador of a particular people or culture and I did not want that role.- Erum Shazia Hasan

The novel is Maya's story and Maya's colleague has been accused of assaulting a young local girl, the daughter of the Chief, someone that Maya mentored. To further complicate things, that accused man is a colleague of hers. What does Maya make of that situation?

I think Maya doesn't know what to make of that situation. She's thrown into this circumstance. I wanted her to be so confused because I think we have larger expectations of ourselves, of what we would do in that kind of a circumstance or how we would feel if someone was accused — especially following the #MeToo movement.

There's a very clear idea of how we should act: and yet when it's somebody you know, somebody you've worked with and have seen do charitable acts before, how does that problematize the circumstance?

I think we have larger expectations of ourselves, of what we would do in that kind of a circumstance or how we would feel if someone was accused.- Erum Shazia Hasan

I also wanted to capture the fact that there are no clear answers in these kinds of circumstances — and to give her a moment of grace to question and challenge herself. 

Can you talk a little bit more about that internal struggle that she finds herself in? 

Maya has set up for herself different ideals. When she started as a humanitarian, she had this ideal of going and saving the world — helping people and finding herself through that.

And then she goes back into her world: she's the wife of an affluent man, she has a child and she's trying to create this ideal of what it means to be a successful American. The struggle there is, where is she in that? She's following these idealized paths, but where is her authentic self to be found in those kinds of expectations? 

I have to ask you about the expression that somebody "meant well." It seems like a positive expression, but the vast majority of times where it's used, the suggestion is that it may have caused more harm than good. How do you see the title of the book? 

I like to hope that most of us are well-meaning with whatever we do, with whatever work we take on. But sometimes we can get caught up in our own practices and not look at the consequences of what we're doing. I think humanitarian work, charity work are essential — in no way is this a takedown of that kind of world. We need charitable organizations, we need humanitarians to do the work that states fail to do.

However, I think we need a constant examination of ourselves and what is the impact that we are having — whether in the charitable world or in any kind of job that is service oriented. If you're a doctor, a teacher, or a caregiver, you need to constantly see how the person that you're supposed to be supporting is experiencing this and there needs to be a constant learning.

So "we meant well" as in yes, your premise and your intention might be there, but the outcome may be very different and we constantly need that self analysis. 

We need charitable organizations, we need humanitarians to do the work that states fail to do.- Erum Shazia Hasan

What pulled you to that kind of work to begin with, working with aid agencies across the world?

I grew up in France. When I was a child, every two summers we would go to Pakistan. The differences between France and Pakistan were very shocking and startling — sometimes even within Pakistan because you have some areas that are extremely affluent and then you have some which are extremely vulnerable.

So I think that just created a sense of connectivity for me of how people can be living in poverty when I'm not. It's something I struggle with on a daily basis, it's something I struggle with in Toronto when we walk by and there's people without homes on the street.

That was what drove me to aid: I didn't know how to sort of exist in this world without being connected to people who are not living in the same circumstances that I am. 

Why did you want to explore power dynamics in this novel, including who deserves what and who has the power to decide?

I wanted to look at something that is considered so benign, which is charity, and flesh out the power dynamics.

Again, I think it's important to be charitable and not dismiss charity, but the fact is that there's always a relationship. There's someone giving money, giving funds or giving support — and there's someone who's receiving and that in of itself is not an equal relationship.

So there's always going to be an imbalance there; I wanted to tease that out a little bit.

This isn't a benign act, there are interactions there that we have to examine more closely, especially when we're supporting someone. There's also the idea of the gratitude we expect sometimes from the most vulnerable, the role we see or prescribe to people who are receiving something. We expect them to be a certain way in their reception of what we're giving them. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.