![]() ![]() That, to me, is what it means to be alive."Īsghar is the author of the poetry collection If They Come for Us, as well as a filmmaker, educator, and performer. Of the book, they said: "These characters, they go through things that are so heartbreaking and so cruel yet they still insist on loving as much as they possibly can, even when they are mean to each other. In October, they told NPR's Scott Simon that being on the margins of society and vulnerable from such a young age was a window into "a certain kind of cruelty that I think most people don't have a reference point for."Īshgar said that the stories they read about orphans while growing up never really rang true - that they'd always think "this doesn't feel accurate." When We Were Sisters reflects some of Ashgar's own experiences both as a queer South Asian Muslim and a person whose parents died when they were young. The prize jury wrote that Asghar "weaves narrative threads as exacting and spare as luminous poems," and their novel is "head-turning in its experimentations." They will receive $150,000 as well as a writing residency at Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland and Labrador.Īsghar's When We Were Sisters is a coming-of-age novel that follows three orphaned Muslim-American siblings left to raise one another in the aftermath of their parents' death. The award was announced Thursday evening at Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tenn. Fatimah Asghar is the first recipient of the Carol Shields prize for fiction for their debut novel When We Were Sisters. ![]()
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