Iman Verjee

Last updated

Iman Verjee is a Kenyan author who has written two books and is currently based in Edmonton, Canada. [1] Verjee was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and lived there until she was 18 before moving to Canada and England. [2]

Contents

Career

Verjee's first novel, In Between Dreams, addresses themes of child sexual abuse and was published in May 2014 by Oneworld Publications. [3] Speaking to Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation in 2014, Verjee said she focused on the topic of sexual abuse because "it’s a terrible thing to have to happen to anyone and it’s imperative that society deals with it". [4]

Her second novel, Who Will Catch Us As We Fall, was published in 2016. It examines the culture of the Indian-Kenyans who arrived in Kenya during the colonial era, [5] focusing particularly on the tensions between Africans and Indians living in post–British imperialism Kenya. She began writing her second novel while she spent a year back in Kenya after twelve years away, after which time she observed how the city had changed in her absence. [6]

Bibliography

Awards and recognition

Verjee is the winner of the 2012 Peters Fraser & Dunlop/City University Prize for Fiction for her novel In Between Dreams. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Arbour</span> Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist (born 1947)

Louise Arbour, is a Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rona Ambrose</span> Canadian politician

Ronalee Ambrose Veitch is a Canadian former politician who was interim leader of the Conservative Party and the leader of the Opposition between 2015 and 2017. She was the Conservative Party member of the House of Commons for Sturgeon River—Parkland between 2015 and 2017, and had previously represented Edmonton—Spruce Grove from 2004 to 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shani Mootoo</span> Canadian artist

Shani Mootoo, writer, visual artist and video maker, was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1957 to Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at the age of 19 to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eden Robinson</span> Indigenous Canadian author

Eden Victoria Lena Robinson is an Indigenous Canadian author. She is a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations.

<i>The House on Mango Street</i> Novel by Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street is a 1984 novel by Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros. Structured as a series of vignettes, it tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Chicana girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Based in part on Cisneros's own experience, the novel follows Esperanza over the span of one year in her life, as she enters adolescence and begins to face the realities of life as a young woman in a poor and patriarchal community. Elements of the Mexican-American culture and themes of social class, race, sexuality, identity, and gender are interwoven throughout the novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zain Verjee</span> Television presenter

Zain Verjee is a Kenyan-born journalist of Indian descent based in Nairobi and the Los Angeles area. She is a former CNN anchor and correspondent.

.Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet, essayist and translator. She lives in France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madeleine Thien</span> Canadian short story writer and novelist

Madeleine Thien is a Canadian short story writer and novelist. The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature has considered her work as reflecting the increasingly trans-cultural nature of Canadian literature, exploring art, expression and politics inside Cambodia and China, as well as within diasporic East Asian communities. Thien's critically acclaimed novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, won the 2016 Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards for Fiction. It was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize, the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, and the 2017 Rathbones Folio Prize. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivek Shraya</span> Musical artist

Vivek Shraya is a Canadian musician, writer, and visual artist. She currently lives in Calgary, Alberta, where she is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Calgary. As a trans woman of colour, Shraya often incorporates her identity in her music, writing, visual art, theatrical work, and films. She is a seven-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, and considered a Great Canadian Filmmaker of the Future by CBC Arts.

<i>Petals of Blood</i> Book by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongo

Petals of Blood is a novel written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and first published in 1977. Set in Kenya just after independence, the story follows four characters – Munira, Abdulla, Wanja, and Karega – whose lives are intertwined due to the Mau Mau rebellion. In order to escape city life, each retreats to the small, pastoral village of Ilmorog. As the novel progresses, the characters deal with the repercussions of the Mau Mau rebellion as well as with a new, rapidly westernizing Kenya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebeka Njau</span> Kenyan educator, writer and textile artist

Rebeka Njau was Kenya's first female playwright and a pioneer in the representation of African women in literature. Her writing has addressed topics such as female genital mutilation and homosexuality. Her first novel, Ripples in the Pool (1975), appeared as number 203 in the Heinemann African Writers Series.

In late 2014, Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi was arrested and charged with four counts of sexual assault, and one count of overcoming resistance by choking, in relation to three complainants. He was charged with three additional counts related to three more women on January 8, 2015. On October 1, 2015, Ghomeshi pleaded not guilty to one count of choking and four counts of sexual assault. The trial began on February 1, 2016. He was acquitted of all five charges on March 24, 2016.

<i>Sleeping Beauties</i> (novel) Novel by Stephen King and Owen King

Sleeping Beauties is a novel by Stephen King and his son Owen King, released on September 26, 2017. The book was first mentioned during a promotional appearance on the CBC radio program q. Of the novel, Stephen King stated, "Owen brought me this dynamite idea and I've collaborated a couple of times with Joe. I'm not going to say what the idea is because it's too good."

Antonia Quirke is a British film critic. As well as writing on film for the Financial Times and a weekly column for the New Statesman, she has presented regularly on The Film Programme, Pick of the Week, BBC Radio 4, as well as Film... and The One Show on BBC One.

<i>A Better Man</i> (film) 2017 Canadian film

A Better Man is a 2017 Canadian documentary film co-directed by Attiya Khan and Lawrence Jackman in which Khan, a survivor of domestic abuse, meets with the man who abused her to see if he can take responsibility to heal and repair the harms he created. The first filmed encounter between her and her ex-boyfriend, identified only as "Steve," took place in April 2013. After the initial contact, several of the conversations were facilitated by Tod Augusta-Scott, a prominent counselor in the domestic violence field. The film also follows them back to their old high school as well as an apartment in Ottawa, and shows how the violence still affects Khan.

Zainub Verjee DFA LL. D. is a Kenya-born Canadian video artist, curator, writer, arts administrator and public intellectual. She began her career in the Vancouver arts community of the 1970s, which was steeped in interdisciplinary, intermedia, and intercultural practices. Having made her mark as an emerging artist, she shifted the emphasis of her work to curatorial, administrative and policy arenas. Applying the insight, creativity and criticality of an artist, she has brought “institutional critique” into the workings of the institution itself. Deeply engaged with the UK’s British Black Arts, Tactical Video Movement, Third Cinema and the post-Bandung Conference decolonization, Verjee has been embedded in the history of women’s labour in British Columbia. In February 2020 she was awarded the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts for “outstanding contribution to the arts”. In 2021 she was conferred an honorary doctorate by the OCAD University recognizing her outstanding contribution to arts, racial and gender equity She was elected as a Senior Fellow of the Massey College at University of Toronto in the Fall of 2021. Earlier she was appointed as McLaughlin College Fellow at the York University. In 2022 she was conferred Doctor of Fine Arts, honours causa, by Nova Scotia College of Art and Design NSCAD University, Halifax

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayisha Malik</span> British author

Ayisha Malik is a British author. Her debut novel Sofia Khan is Not Obliged was published in 2015. The sequel, The Other Half of Happiness, was published in 2017. Malik was a consultant for Nadiya Hussain's novel The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters.

Gwen Benaway is Canadian poet and activist. She is a PhD candidate in the Women & Gender Studies Institute at the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. Benaway has also written non-fiction for The Globe and Mail and Maclean's.

<i>The Marrow Thieves</i> 2017 novel by Cherie Dimaline

The Marrow Thieves is a young adult novel by Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, published on September 1, 2017 by Cormorant Books through its Dancing Cat Books imprint.

<i>Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars</i> 2016 novel

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir is a 2016 Canadian book by Kai Cheng Thom. A surrealist novel, it follows an unnamed transgender woman protagonist who leaves home at a young age to live on the Street of Miracles—where various sex work takes place—with other "femmes". After one of them is killed, others form a gang and begin to attack men on the street.

References

  1. "How leaving Nairobi (and coming back) helped Iman Verjee write her new novel". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  2. "How leaving Nairobi (and coming back) helped Iman Verjee write her new novel". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  3. "Iman Verjee publishes her debut novel – In Between Dreams". Ismailimail. 2014-04-18. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  4. "Child sexual abuse: Inside the worlds of victim, perpetrator". Daily Nation. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  5. "Out of Africa". The Economist. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  6. "How leaving Nairobi (and coming back) helped Iman Verjee write her new novel". www.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2017-04-02.
  7. "Iman Verjee - Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD)". Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD). Retrieved 2017-04-02.