Sanita Fejzić has made the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Say My Name, Say My Name Right.

Sanita Fejzić is a Bosnian-Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and playwright. At the age of seven, after experiencing the Siege of Sarajevo, she fled the Balkan War and was a refugee in Europe for five years with her mother and brother. She immigrated to Canada in 1997, the year of the ice storm. Her work focuses on themes of intergenerational trauma, violence against women, mother-child bonds, the links between power and words, as well as affection and attunement to otherness. Fejzić's last name is pronounced fey-zitch. As she likes to joke, if you can say Nietzsche, you can say Fejzić.

"A Bosnian-Canadian Muslim in Paris."

"For a long time, I hid my Muslim heritage. My mother, brother and I escaped the Siege of Sarajevo during the genocide of Muslim Bosniaks in the Balkan War when I was seven years old. My entire childhood was defined by my Muslim difference, one that resulted in the deaths of many family members, including my dear nena, my father's mother. Our forced exile, as well as the slow erasure of our Muslim heritage, isn't simply something we chose to do — it was also produced by the increasing Islamophobia we see accelerating to this day in the West.

"When I wrote this piece, I tried to show and deconstruct Islamophobia and its connection to language, particularly the function and power of naming. I did not choose my name, just as I did not choose my cultural heritage."

The year that youths from housing projects burned cars in the outskirts of Paris following the death of two Muslim boys who were electrocuted in a hideout as they tried to evade routine police questioning — which sparked the 2005 French riots — I was at a student orientation event at the Université de Vinci Pôle, meeting my peers who had come from all over the world to finish a semester in commerce in the city of love. When an official from the program presented himself to me, I was shy and awkward. His business suit told me he was important. His gold Rolex pointed to the class difference between him and the rest of us.

Speaking in French, I introduced myself and thanked him for the opportunity to study in his department.

"What is your last name?" he asked me, smiling.

When I told him, the smile changed into a smirk.

"Where are you from?"

The winner of the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 18, 2019. The winner will be announced on Sept. 25, 2019.