Nadifa Mohamed
Nadifa Mohamed نظيفة محمد Realism, historical fiction | |
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Awards | Betty Trask Award (2010) Somerset Maugham Award (2014) Prix Albert Bernard (2016) Wales Book of the Year (2022) |
Nadifa Mohamed
Personal life
Mohamed was born in 1981 in Hargeisa, Somaliland.[7] Her father was a sailor in the merchant navy and her mother was a local landlady.[8] In 1986, she moved with her family to London for what was intended to be a temporary stay. However, the civil war broke out shortly afterwards in Somalia, so they remained in the UK.[9]
Mohamed later attended the St Hilda's College, Oxford,[10][11] where she studied history and politics. In 2008, she visited Hargeisa for the first time in more than a decade.[9]
Mohamed resides in London.[9]
Literary career
Mohamed's first novel,
In 2013, Mohamed released her second novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls. Set in Somalia on the eve of the civil war,[20] it was published by Simon & Schuster.[21] Reviewing it in The Independent, Arifa Akbar said: "If Mohamed's first novel was about fathers and sons ... this one is essentially about mothers and daughters."[22] In 2014 The Orchard of Lost Souls won the Somerset Maugham Award and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.[23]
In December 2013, Mohamed was one of 36 writer and translator participants at the Doha International Book Fair's Literary Translation Summit in Qatar.[24]
She was chosen as one of Granta magazine's "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013,[25] and in April 2014 was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature.[26][27]
Her writing has also been published in such outlets as The Guardian[28] and Literary Hub, as well as in the anthology New Daughters of Africa (edited by Margaret Busby, 2019),[29] which includes poetry by Mohamed.[30]
In June 2018 Mohamed was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative.[31]
She joined the English Creative Writing faculty of Royal Holloway, University of London, in 2018.[32]
Her 2021 novel,
Mohamed has said that her next book will be "a contemporary novel set in the world of Somali women in London".[33]
Awards
- 2010: Betty Trask Prize for Black Mamba Boy[40]
- 2013: Granta "Best of Young British Novelists"[41]
- 2014: Africa39 list of the most promising writers under the age of 40 from Sub-Saharan Africa[42]
- 2014: Somerset Maugham Award for The Orchard of Lost Souls[43]
- 2022: Wales Book of the Year for The Fortune Men
Works
Novels
- Black Mamba Boy (2010)
- The Orchard of Lost Souls (2013)
- The Fortune Men (2021)
Selected shorter writings
- "Filsan", Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4, 16 April 2013.
- "Migrants for whom the Sahara proved a graveyard started out in hope", The Guardian, 1 November 2013.
- "Sasayama", Granta 127: Japan, 25 June 2014.
- "Somalis returning to the motherland are finding their foreign ways out of favour", The Guardian, 11 September 2015.
- "Britain’s clampdown on FGM is leaving young girls traumatised", The Guardian, 7 September 2017.
- "How many dead Somalis does it take for us to care?", The Guardian, 23 October 2017.
- "What We Lost in the Grenfell Tower Fire", LitHub, 24 October 2017.
References
- ^ "Nadifa Mohamed - Literature". Literature.britishcouncil.org. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
- ^ "Spotlight: Nadifa Mohamed", Africa39.
- ^ "The Fortune Men". thebookerprizes.com. 27 May 2021. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
- ^ "Ms Nadifa Mohamed". Royal Holloway, University of London. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
- ^ "'A community of creative writers' – Nadifa Mohamed, English | Royal Holloway, University of London". Royal Holloway. 6 January 2020. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^ Faculty, Creative Writing Program, NYU.
- ^ Nadifa Mohamed Archived 15 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine, HarperCollins Author Profile
- ^ a b "WDN Interview with Nadifa Mohamed: The Author of Black Mamba Boy", WardheerNews, 21 April 2011. Archived 1 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ a b c "Nadifa Mohamed". Simon and Schuster. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
- ^ "Nadifa Mohamed - Modern History and Politics, 2000", St Hilda's College, University of Oxford. Retrieved 3 Februaary 2023.
- ^ "Flash fiction from Nadifa Mohamed", biographical note. TANK magazine, issue 74, April 2018.
- ^ Catherine Taylor (2 January 2010), "First novels from Simon Lelic, Nadifa Mohamed, Alan Monaghan and Ru Freeman", The Guardian.
- ^ Arifa Akbar (15 January 2010), "Black Mamba Boy, By Nadifa Mohamed" (review), The Independent.
- ^ Hassan M. Abukar, "Black Mamba Boy: A Book Review" Archived 9 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine, WardheerNews, 30 October 2010.
- ^ "Nadifa Mohamed in conversation with Ellah Allfrey". Rift Valley Institute. 21 June 2013. Archived from the original on 12 May 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
- ^ Benedicte Page (29 October 2010), "Guardian first book award shortlist revealed", The Guardian.
- ^ "Somali author Nadifa Mohamed up for first book prize", BBC, 28 October 2010.
- ^ "Shortlist announced for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2010". BookTrust. Archived from the original on 27 November 2010.
- ^ "Orange Prize for Fiction announces 2010 longlist", The Independent, 17 March 2010.
- ^ Maya Jaggi (14 September 2013), "The Orchard of Lost Souls by Nadifa Mohamed – review. The Betty Trask award winner takes on a complex history of Somalian civil unrest with a focus on women", The Guardian.
- ^ Rhiannon Davies (16 August 2013). "The Orchard of Lost Souls". The Lady. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
- ^ Arifa Akbar (16 August 2013), "Book review: The Orchard of Lost Souls, By Nadifa Mohamed", The Independent.
- ^ "Dylan Thomas Prize: Swansea University reveals longlist", BBC News, South West Wales, 22 July 2014.
- ^ "Doha International Book Fair Opens". Marhaba. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
- ^ "Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4". Granta (123). 2013. Archived from the original on 17 April 2013.
- ^ Nadifa Mohamed page at Africa39.
- ^ Margaret Busby (10 April 2014), "Africa39: how we chose the writers for Port Harcourt World Book Capital 2014", The Guardian.
- ^ Nadifa Mohamed page at The Guardian.
- ^ Bookseller staff (19 June 2019). "Obioma, Okojie and Evaristo join Africa Writes line-up". The Bookseller.
- ^ Margaret Busby (9 March 2019), "From Ayòbámi Adébáyò to Zadie Smith: meet the New Daughters of Africa", The Guardian.
- ^ Alison Flood (28 June 2018). "Royal Society of Literature admits 40 new fellows to address historical biases". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
- ^ "Nadifa Mohamed to Join Royal Holloway English Creative Writing Faculty". Royal Holloway, University of London. 2 July 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
- ^ a b "Nadifa Mohamed Q&A". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
- ^ Sally Vincent (1 November 2021). "How a 17-year-old newspaper article inspired Nadifa Mohamed to Booker success". Penguin Newsletter.
- ^ Ashish Ghadiali (25 May 2021). "The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed review – a miscarriage of justice revisited". The Guardian.
- ^ Michael Donkor (28 May 2021). "The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed review – injustice exposed". The Guardian.
- ^ Rebecca Jones (14 September 2021). "Booker Prize 2021 shortlist: 'Absorbing global stories of life and death'". BBC. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
- ^ Alison Flood (14 September 2021). "Nadifa Mohamed is sole British writer to make Booker prize shortlist". The Guardian.
- ^ "English-language Book of the Year 2022". Wales Arts Review. 29 July 2022. Retrieved 21 November 2022.
- ^ Richard Lea (27 August 2010). "Guardian first book award longlist ranges around the world". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
- ^ Annalisa Quinn (15 April 2013). "Granta's 'Best of Young British Novelists' Shows A 'Disunited Kingdom'". Granta. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
- ^ "Africa39" (PDF). Hay Festival. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 July 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
- ^ Yusuf M. Hassan (2 July 2014), "Somaliland: Author Nadifa Mohamed Wins the Somerset Maugham Awards 2014" Archived 12 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Somaliland Sun.
External links
- "WDN Interview with Nadifa Mohamed: The Author of Black Mamba Boy", WardheerNews, 21 April 2011.
- "Black Mamba Boy – Nadifa Mohamed" on YouTube.
- Nadifa Mohamed on Somali Writers, Asymptote.
- Nadifa Mohamed interviewed by Stacey Knecht for www.the-ledge.com
- Magnus Taylor, "An interview with Nadifa Mohamed: 'I don’t feel bound by Somalia…but the stories that have really motivated me are from there'", African Arguments, 1 November 2013.
- "Nadifa Mohamed: The Granta Podcast, Ep. 71", Granta, 22 May 2013.
- Granta Video: Nadifa Mohamed, 11 June 2013.
- The Telegraph, 16 August 2013.
- Annasue McCleave Wilson, "The Only Seeds Being Sown Were Bullets: PW Talks with Nadifa Mohamed", Publishers Weekly, 6 December 2013.
- John Freeman, "Novelist Nadifa Mohamed on the Impact of Trump's Muslim Ban", LitHub, 31 January 2017.