Author Hasina Knox. Her memoir, Longing to Belong: An Orphan’s Story, explores her journey of identity and belonging.
By Pamela Collins
Hasina Knox is a local Scarborough author living in the Malvern community. She is best known for her autobiography Longing to Belong – An Orphan’s Story.
I met up with Hasina at a local café to learn more about her life and her book. Hasina is a lovely, vibrant lady and very generously shared her personal story with me.
Happily married for 29 years and a proud stay at home mother of four, Hasina told me she has always loved to write. She began writing short stories at age 8 inspired by Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and she wrote children’s books influenced by her family life and everyday experiences.
When Hasina was just 11, she wrote a book called The Gold Land, a childhood story about kindness and generosity and how it can change the world.
Born in Bangladesh and orphaned as an infant, she was adopted by a Canadian farming family near London, Ontario at age 3.
Her book, Longing to Belong – An Orphan’s Story, chronicles her life as an orphan and her search for her place in the world.
Hasina has no memories of her birth parents; she was told that she was abandoned by her mother and left in a basket at an orphanage with a note saying her name was Hasina and records that only provided vital details such as height and weight. As she grew, she felt displaced as a brown child in a small, Caucasian community. Her adoptive parents were stern, hardworking people who did not show much affection.
Each chapter relates a different stage of Hasina’s development, from leaving her family and moving to Toronto, meeting her husband, to finding the Christian faith that helped to heal her and teach her forgiveness.
As she wrote her book, long-buried memories resurfaced, and putting them to paper became a cathartic act of emotional honesty. The process forced her to confront unresolved pain from her childhood as an adopted child, including struggles with self-worth and belonging. Feeling misunderstood and adrift, she eventually rebelled and left home, only to encounter new challenges along the way.
After having children of her own, she realized the family dynamic of her adoptive family was likely the norm for that time period, including spanking and getting grounded. She learned to forgive them and acknowledge her own shortcomings. She also found out that her parents followed the same Christian doctrine that she had discovered and still embraces to this day.
Hasina Knox’s memoir is so relatable; it will speak straight to your heart with her honesty.
In a podcast interview with Joshua Kangley, also an adoptive child, the pair discuss the challenges of adoptees and how they tend to compartmentalize their feelings.
Hasina told Joshua that her book was “not just about her story but rather a reflection of the universal, human longing to find one’s place in the world, a statement of shared longing in countless hearts. By acknowledging this shared longing, we build connections beyond individual experiences, fostering understanding and compassion among people.”
She hopes readers have this take-away from her book: “We are all connected and can learn to forgive one another despite what trials we face in life; we can learn empathy, kindness, compassion and resilience.” You can listen to this interview on Spotify: Table Talks with Joshua Kangley.
Each chapter of her book is prefaced with a quote from different sources. My personal favourite is, “People who wonder if the glass is half empty or half full, missed the point. The glass is refillable” (author unknown).
A poignant quote, by C.S. Lewis, at the end of her last chapter, sums up Hasina’s journey from then to now: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
Hasina shared that after being rejected by several publishers, she realized that in order to have her story told, she would have to publish the book herself. Without guidance from others, she researched on-line how to edit, layout and design her pages, including choice of font, and cover illustration. It took lengthy hours to learn the process.
Hasina also developed a web page for her work and joined social media to market herself.
She has published over 80 works, from children’s books to adult journals. Her memoir, Longing to Belong – An Orphan’s Story is available in print, eBook, and audiobook on Amazon and Audible and is being adapted into a movie. She has created a companion song, Longing to Belong, available on Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music.
Follow her on Instagram: @a_journey_of_flavours.