American writer Fatimah Asghar wins inaugural $206K Carol Shields Prize for Fiction
Catherine Zhu | CBC Books | Posted: May 5, 2023 12:17 AM | Last Updated: May 5, 2023
The award recognizes fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States
Fatimah Asghar has won the first-ever Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for their debut novel When We Were Sisters.
The South Asian American Muslim author will receive $150,000 USD ($206,432 Cdn) and a residency at Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland.
The inaugural prize for women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States celebrates creativity and excellence in fiction.
Asghar's When We Were Sisters is about the bonds and fractures of sisterhood. It traces the intense bond of three orphaned siblings who raise one another after their parents die. Kausar is the youngest, and deals with the loss of their parents as she also charts out her own understanding of gender; the middle sister Aisha, spars with her "crybaby" younger sibling as she desperately tries to hold on to her sense of family in a difficult situation; and the eldest Noreen, does her best in the sister-mother role while also trying to create her own life.
The story names the perils of being three Muslim American girls alone against the world, and it illustrates how those who've lost everything might still make homes in one another.
This year's winner was selected by a jury comprised of Canadian writers katherena vermette, Anita Rau Badami and Merilyn Simonds and American writers Crystal Wilkinson and Monique Truong.
"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," the jury said of the winning novel.
WATCH | The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction awards ceremony:
Asghar is also the author of the poetry collection If They Come for Us and is the co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me. They wrote and is the co-creator of the web series Brown Girls and are a co-producer on the Disney TV show Ms. Marvel.
"I am so shook," Ashgar said upon accepting the award. "This book was so difficult to write and so rewarding to write. There were so many people who just held me down throughout the process, who offered words of encouragement, who offered words of love and who offered care. That is just so invaluable in all of the moments where you think you can't keep writing: to have people you say, 'We believe in you, you can get to the other side.'"
The four remaining finalists were American writers Daphne Palasi Andreades for Brown Girls, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri for What We Fed to the Manticore and Alexis Schaitkin for Elsewhere, and Canadian writer Suzette Mayr for The Sleeping Car Porter.
The Sleeping Car Porter brings to life an important part of Black history in North America, from the perspective of a queer man living in a culture that renders him invisible in two ways. The novel won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Each of the finalists will receive $12,500 USD ($17,196 Cdn).
LISTEN | Suzette Mayr discusses The Sleeping Car Porter:
Shields, the prize's namesake, was one of Canada's best-known writers.
Her books include the novels The Stone Diaries, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 1992 and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993, Larry's Party and Unless. She died in 2003.
The Carol Shields Prize was founded by Canadian writer Susan Swan and Janice Zawerbny, an editor at HarperCollins Canada.
The prize was first announced in 2020, and Melinda Gates quickly came on as one of the financial supporters. BMO is the presenting sponsor for the award.
LISTEN | A conversation with Carol Shields: