Posted on May 5, 2023 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, launched just a few years ago, can officially announce its first winner.

Fatimah Asghar's debut novel, When We Were Sisters, has garnered the author $150,000 as well as a writing residency at Fogo Island Inn in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The prize honors fiction by women and nonbinary writers in Canada and the United States.

NPR interviewed Asghar back in October about their experience being orphaned and how they sought to depict it more accurately in their own fiction, versus what they'd encountered in other media.

Asghar's novel, which was also longlisted for the National Book Award, is the tale of three Muslim American sisters who must raise one another while battling countless other obstacles.

Award judges said that Asghar weaves narrative threads as exacting and spare as luminous poems" and described the novel as "head-turning in its experimentations."

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Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Awards, Diversity, NPR

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