Nashville, TN — The richest literary prize in the world for women and non-binary writers, The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, has named Fatimah Asghar as its first-ever recipient. Asghar wins $150,000 for their debut novel When We Were Sisters, published by One World / Random House. At a live event at Ann Patchett’s celebrated Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, literary greats from the US and Canada were present at the inaugural prize announcement. The prize monies are generously donated by BMO.
The Jury, made up of Anita Rau Badami, Merilyn Simonds, Monique Truong, katherena vermette and Crystal Wilkinson, said of the book: “A debut novel written by a skilled, assured hand, When We Were Sisters absolutely dazzles. Following three orphaned Muslim American siblings as they navigate great loss and painful comings of age, Fatimah Asghar weaves narrative threads as exacting and spare as luminous poems, their fragility a mere guise for their complete, unflinching indestructibility. Noreen, Aisha, and Kausar show us what they truly need to survive, even when everything seems taken away. Asghar’s novel is a tour de force, at once stirring and beautiful, breathtaking in its lyricism, and head-turning in its experimentations.”
Asghar is also the author of the poetry collection If They Come for Us, as well as a filmmaker, educator, and performer. They are the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, an Emmy-nominated web series that highlights friendships between women of color. Along with Safia Elhillo, they are the editor of Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology that celebrates Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender-nonconforming, and/or trans. A co-producer on Disney+’s Ms. Marvel, they wrote the “Time and Again” episode.
In addition to the $150,000 prize, Asghar will receive a residency at the award-winning Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland and Labrador. Daphne Palasi Andreades (Brown Girls), Talia Lakshmi Kolluri (What We Fed to the Manticore), Suzette Mayr (The Sleeping Car Porter) and Alexis Schaitkin (Elsewhere) will each receive $12,500 as finalists of the Prize.
“Our heartiest congratulations to Fatimah for making history with us as the first winner of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. It was a nail-biting moment because the five nominees made up one of the strongest literary prize shortlists we’ve seen in recent years,” said Susan Swan, Janice Zawerbny and Don Oravec, co-founders of The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.
