Fatimah Asghar | |
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Occupation | Poet, screenwriter ![]() |
Awards | |
Website | https://www.fatimahasghar.com ![]() |
Fatimah Asghar is a South Asian American poet, director and screenwriter. Co-creator and writer for the Emmy-nominated webseries Brown Girls , their work has appeared in Poetry , [1] Gulf Coast, BuzzFeed Reader, The Margins, The Offing, Academy of American Poets , [2] and other publications.
Asghar is a member of the Dark Noise Collective [3] and a Kundiman Fellow. [4] They received the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation in 2017, [5] and has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. [6]
Asghar's mother was from Jammu and Kashmir and fled with their family during Partition related violence. Their father was from Pakistan. Their parents immigrated to the United States. They both died by the time Asghar was five, leaving them an orphan. [7] "As an orphan, something I learned was that I could never take love for granted, so I would actively build it," they told HelloGiggles in 2018. [8]
Asghar's identity as an orphan is a major theme in their work, their poem "How'd Your Parents Die Again?" opens with the lines:
Again? As though I told you how the first time.Everyone always tries to theft, bring them back out the grave. [9] In their poem "Super Orphan," Asghar once again explores the impact of their absence.
Woke up, parents still
dead. Outside, the leaves yawn,
re-christen themselves as spring. [10]
After high school Asghar attended Brown University, [11] where they majored in International Relations and Africana Studies. [12] It was not until they were in college that Asghar learned about how the Partition of India had deeply impacted their family. Their uncle described how the family was forced to leave Kashmir for Lahore and told them about the impact of being refugees in a new land affected their family. Learning about their family's firsthand experience during partition had a profound effect on Asghar and their work. ""I've been constantly thinking about it, and looking back into it and trying to understand exactly what happened," they said in 2018. [13]
Along with their orphanhood, the legacy of Partition is another major theme in their poetry. "Partition is always going to be a thing that matters to me and influences me," they once said. "When your people have gone through such historical violence, you cannot shake it." [14]
In 2017, Asghar and Sam Bailey released their web series Brown Girls . Written by Asghar and directed by Bailey, the series is based on Asghar's friendship with the artist Jamila Woods and their experiences as two women of color navigating their twenties. The two main characters are a queer Pakistani-American writer and an African-American musician and are played by Nabila Hossain and Sonia Denis respectively. [15]
"Often, our friends joke that we are each other's life partners, or 'real wifeys.'" Asghar told NBC News of their friendship with Woods. "And in a lot of ways we are. Jamila gets me through everything. She's seen me at my worst, at my best, at my most insecure — everything." [16]
Brown Girls received an Emmy nomination in 2017 in the Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama Series category. [17]
Asghar was nominated for the Young Lions Fiction Award for When We Were Sisters. [18] The novel won the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction in 2023. [19]
Kenn Nesbitt is an American children's poet. On June 11, 2013, he was named Children's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. He was the last one to receive this title before the Poetry Foundation changed its name to Young People's Poet Laureate.
Kundiman is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature. The organization offers an annual writing retreat, readings, workshops, a mentorship program, and a poetry prize, and aims to provide "a safe yet rigorous space where Asian American poets can explore, through art, the unique challenges that face the new and ever changing diaspora." Kundiman was co-founded in 2004 by Asian American poets Sarah Gambito and Joseph O. Legaspi, and has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Poetry Foundation, the New York Community Trust, Philippine American Writers, PAWA, and individuals.
Oliver de la Paz is an American poet and educator. He is the author of four collections of poetry, including Requiem for the Orchard, winner of the Akron Prize for Poetry. His honors include a 2005 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship Award and a 2009 GAP Grant from Artist Trust. His work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including Virginia Quarterly Review,North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review, and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation.
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Jamila Woods is a Chicago-based American singer, songwriter and poet. Woods is a graduate of St. Ignatius College Prep and Brown University, where she received a BA in Africana Studies and Theater & Performance Studies. Her work focuses on themes of Black ancestry, Black feminism, and Black identity, with recurring emphases on self-love and the City of Chicago.
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Brown Girls is an American comedy web series created by Fatimah Asghar and Sam Bailey. It follows two friends, Leila and Patricia, who pursue their dreams in Chicago.
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When We Were Sisters is a 2022 novel by American writer Fatimah Asghar. The novel follows the lives of three orphaned sisters sent to live with their uncle after their father's death.
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