Aminatta Forna

Aminatta Forna
OBE
Aminatta Forna at the awards ceremony of the LiBeraturpreis 2008 for her book "Ancestor Stones".
Forna in Frankfurt am Main, 2008
Born20 December 1965
Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland
OccupationAuthor, academic, commentator
Alma materUniversity College London
Notable worksThe Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest (2003);
Ancestor Stones (2006);
The Memory of Love (2010);
The Hired Man (2013);
Happiness (2017);
The Window Seat (2021)
Notable awardsCommonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Award 2011;
2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (Fiction)
SpouseSimon Westcott
Website
aminattaforna.com

Aminatta Forna OBE is a British writer of Scottish and Sierra Leonean ancestry. Her first book was a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest (2002).[1][2] Since then she has written four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006),[3] The Memory of Love (2010),[4] The Hired Man (2013)[5][6] and Happiness (2018). In 2021 she published a collection of essays, The Window Seat: Notes from a Life in Motion. (2021), which was a new genre for her.

She has been widely praised and received numerous awards, in addition to being nominated for others. Her novel The Memory of Love was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for "Best Book" in 2011,[7][8] and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.[9]

Forna is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She was the Sterling Brown ’22 Visiting Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.[10][11]

Since 2012 she has been Director and Lannan Foundation Chair of Poetics of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.[12]

Forna was among eight writers from seven countries to win the 2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (fiction).[13][14][15]

Forna was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to literature.[16][17][18]

Forna is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and sits on the advisory committee for the Royal Literary Fund and the Caine Prize for African Writing. She has served as a judge on several high-profile prize panels, including the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.[19] She continues to champion the work of up-and-coming diverse authors.[19][20][21][22]

In March 2019, Forna's Happiness was shortlisted for the European Literature Prize. In April 2019 it was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) Ondaatje Prize and for the Jhalak Prize[23][24][25][26]

  1. ^ Brittain, Victoria (18 May 2002). "The Truth About Daddy". The Guardian. London.
  2. ^ Tonkin, Boyd (4 June 2011). "Aminatta Forna: 'My country had a war. It would be extraordinary not to want to write about that". The Independent.
  3. ^ Montagne, Renee (2 July 2007). "'Ancestor Stones:' Life and War in Sierra Leone". NPR Books.
  4. ^ Kiley, Sam (20 March 2010). "The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 15 June 2011.
  5. ^ "The Independent Bath Literature Festival". Archived from the original on 23 April 2013. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  6. ^ The Hired Man, Aminattaforna.com
  7. ^ Commonwealth Prize. Archived 3 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "Aminatta Forna wins Commonwealth Writers' honour", BBC News, 22 May 2011.
  9. ^ Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 shortlist. The Women's Prize Trust.
  10. ^ Feature Stories: "Reading Africa", Williams College, nda, c. 2021.
  11. ^ "Aminatta Forna page at Bloomsbury". Archived from the original on 10 September 2017. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  12. ^ "Aminatta Forna", Georgetown University.
  13. ^ "Writers from seven countries awarded $150,000 Yale prize", Yale News, 7 March 2014.
  14. ^ "Aminatta Forna – Fiction 2014" Archived 17 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Windham Campbell Prizes.
  15. ^ Lea, Richard (7 March 2014). "Eight authors surprised by $150,000 Windham Campbell books prizes". The Guardian'.
  16. ^ "No. 61803". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2016. p. N11.
  17. ^ "New Year's Honours 2017: CSV", Cabinet Office, 30 December 2016.
  18. ^ Glaze, Ben, Nina Massey, Dan Bloom, Sally Wardle (31 December 2016), "New Year's Honours 2017: Full list of great and good awarded for services to Britain", Daily Mirror.
  19. ^ a b "Judges", Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, 2016.
  20. ^ "Writing the Future: Black and Asian Authors and Publishers in the UK Marketplace", The Royal Society of Literature, 16 April 2015.
  21. ^ Forna, Aminatta (13 February 2015). "Aminatta Forna: don't judge a book by its author". The Guardian.
  22. ^ "Aminatta Forna", British Council – Literature. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  23. ^ "Longlist 2019". Europese Literatuurprijs.
  24. ^ Chandler, Mark (17 April 2019). "Forna and Abouzeid up for RSL Ondaatje Prize 2019". The Bookseller.
  25. ^ "Shortlist announced for 2019 Jhalak Prize for BAME writers", Books+Publishing, 8 April 2019.
  26. ^ Jhalak Prize, 2019.