Sixteen-year-old Emaan Zahra Ijaz watched in horror as bushfires swept across Australia earlier this year, ravaging more than 180,000 square kilometres and reducing swathes of forest into a charred wasteland.
It was one of the country’s worst fire seasons on record, intensified by the blistering effects of climate change. More than one billion animals died as entire ecosystems were devastated and Ijaz – a student at Gems Westminster Sharjah – couldn’t stop thinking about the terror the animals must have felt as their homes succumbed to the flames.
“I’m always trying to imagine what animals are feeling or saying to each other,” she says. Ijaz was born in the UAE but her family is originally from Pakistan.
“I even listen to the chirping of the birds outside my window and write imagined conversations between them. So when the fires swept across Australia, I felt a great deal of sympathy and pity. I felt the need to do something.”
And so she did. Ijaz wrote a book – a tribute to the animals that died in the bushfires, as well as a call to action on climate change.
“I wanted to raise awareness about how reckless human activity was responsible for harming innocent wildlife,” Ijaz says.
Fleeing From The Flames, which was self-published in February, begins with a young koala waking up from a 20-hour slumber to the smell of ash. It soon finds its family dead and is forced to flee as the fires begin to rage.
The 31-page story – written in first-person – then shifts to the perspective of a rabbit, a wombat and finally, a human.
The reason for this, Ijaz says, is because she wanted readers to think about how the fires affected a wide array of species on a personal level. And her writing paints a vivid and unflinching picture of their plight.
“Drenched in sweat, feeling as if my fur was trying to rip itself off my skin, I wake up to the deadly and nauseating sight of my family covered in a black coat of char,” Ijaz writes from the perspective of the young koala. “Rabbits, deer, my friends, the forest. It was all on fire.”
Publishing the book was also a family affair. Ijaz's brother, who is 15, acted as her editor, proof-reading the book and making edits.
“A lot of people supported me with the writing of the book," she says. "From my parents to my teachers and peers at the school.”
Fleeing From the Flames is available as an e-book across several platforms such as Inkitt, Google Playbooks and Scribd. Last month, it topped Wattpad's list of "Saveourplanet" stories and became available at the Sharjah Library.
“The National Library of Australia also contacted me wanting to feature the e-book in their collection,” Ijaz says.
Like more seasoned writers, Ijaz knew she had to do a considerable amount of research before writing her book. She says she watched a number of documentaries about koalas, rabbits and wombats, to get a better understanding of their day-to-day life. She also kept up with the news on the bushfires to know more about how the tragedy affected their lives.
But Fleeing From The Flames is not Ijaz's first foray into writing a book. In 2017, she authored a science communication book, Science Sparks, which delves into biology, physics and chemistry with comics and humorous interactions between micro-organisms.
“The book was aimed at an audience younger than myself,” she says. “I wanted readers to become fascinated by science. It’s usually presented in a drab and boring manner, but it doesn’t have to be like that.”
Science Sparks was not formally published but the e-book did circulate around Ijaz's school. And it earned her plenty of kudos. "I became the school's official journalist, interviewing teachers and writing about school events."
But despite her penchant for writing, Ijaz doesn't intend to turn it into a career. Instead, she hopes to become a biology researcher.
“I want to play an active role in raising awareness about climate change,” she says.
