Zalika Reid-Benta

Last updated
Zalika Reid-Benta
ZalERB.png
Born Toronto, Ontario, Canada
OccupationAuthor
Alma materUniversity of Toronto, Columbia University
Notable worksFrying Plantain, River Mumma

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Canadian author. [1] Her debut novel River Mumma was a finalist for the 2024 Trillium Book Award [2] and received starred reviews from publications such as Publishers Weekly . [3] It has been listed as one of the best fiction books of 2023 on numerous platforms, including CBC Books. [4] The novel is a "magical realist story" inspired by Jamaican folklore. The main character, Alicia Gale, is a young Black woman having a quarter-life crisis, while adventuring through the streets of Toronto, Ontario. [5]

Contents

Reid-Benta's debut short story collection Frying Plantain was nominated and won numerous awards. [6] The book is a collection of linked short stories centering on the coming of age of Kara Davis, a young Jamaican-Canadian girl growing up in the Eglinton West neighbourhood of Toronto. [7]

Early life

Reid-Benta grew up in Toronto. [8] As a child she enjoyed books written by Judy Blume and movies like Now and Then and My Girl, but she didn't see herself represented in these stories. [8] Even as a child she knew she wanted to write. [9]

She graduated from the University of Toronto with an Honours BA in English and Cinema studies and with a minor in Caribbean Studies. [5] She then received an MFA from Columbia University with a concentration in fiction. [5] In 2017 she attended the Writers Studio at the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity and was a 2019 John Gardner Fiction Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. [5] Prior to the publication of her book, she was mentored by writers Victor LaValle, George Elliott Clarke, Janice Galloway and Olive Senior. [7]

Inspirations

In a Scotiabank Giller Prize Spotlight interview, Reid-Benta describes Toni Morrison as being one of her literary heroes and mentions that “reading what she does with language, definitely motivates me to write the best way I can.” [8]

When interviewed by Vannessa Barnier, Reid-Benta also describes that Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid, Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche were inspirations. [10]

In an interview for River Mumma with the Library Journal, Reid-Benta mentions Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia Butler and Cherie Dimaline as inspirations and some of her favourite writers in science fiction and fantasy. [11]

Accolades

Reid-Benta has received several major awards for her work, including:

River Mumma is shortlisted for the 2024 Trillium Book Award. [16] Frying Plantain was shortlisted for the 2020 Toronto Book Awards, [17] for the 2020 Trillium Book Awards, [18] and the 2020 Forest of Reading® Evergreen Award. It was a longlisted nominee for the 2019 Scotia Bank Giller Prize. [8] and it was nominated for the 2021 White Pine Award. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giller Prize</span> Canadian literary award

The Giller Prize is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries. The prize was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife Doris Giller, a former literary editor at the Toronto Star, and is awarded in November of each year along with a cash reward with the winner being presented by the previous year's winning author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Michaels</span> Canadian poet and novelist (born 1958)

Anne Michaels is a Canadian poet and novelist whose work has been translated and published in over 45 countries. Her books have garnered dozens of international awards including the Orange Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Lannan Award for Fiction and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Americas. She is the recipient of honorary degrees, the Guggenheim Fellowship and many other honours. She has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, twice shortlisted for the Giller Prize and twice long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. Michaels won a 2019 Vine Award for Infinite Gradation, her first volume of non-fiction. Michaels was the poet laureate of Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 2016 to 2019, and she is perhaps best known for her novel Fugitive Pieces, which was adapted for the screen in 2007.

André Alexis is a Canadian writer who was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, grew up in Ottawa, and now lives in Toronto, Ontario. He has received numerous awards including the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, the Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Trillium Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Hay (novelist)</span> Canadian novelist and short story writer (born 1951)

Elizabeth Grace Hay is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marina Endicott</span> Canadian writer

Marina Endicott is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Her novel Good to a Fault won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Canada and the Caribbean and was a finalist for the Giller Prize. Her next, The Little Shadows, was longlisted for the Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award. Close to Hugh was longlisted for the Giller Prize and named one of CBC's Best Books of 2015. The Difference won the City of Edmonton Robert Kroetsch Prize. It was published in the US by W. W. Norton as The Voyage of the Morning Light in June 2020.

The Danuta Gleed Literary Award is a Canadian national literary prize, awarded since 1998. It recognizes the best debut short fiction collection by a Canadian author in English language. The annual prize was founded by John Gleed in honour of his late wife, the Canadian writer Danuta Gleed, whose favourite literary genre was short fiction, and is presented by the Writers' Union of Canada. The incomes of her One for the Chosen, a collection of short stories published posthumously in 1997 by BuschekBooks and released by Frances Itani and Susan Zettell, assist in funding the award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rawi Hage</span> Lebanese-Canadian journalist, novelist, and photographer

Rawi Hage is a Lebanese-Canadian journalist, novelist, and photographer based in Montreal, Quebec, in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather O'Neill</span> Canadian writer (b. 1973)

Heather O'Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, who published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel was subsequently selected for the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by singer-songwriter John K. Samson. Lullabies won the competition. The book also won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for eight other major awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Governor General's Award and was longlisted for International Dublin Literary Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ian Williams (writer)</span> Canadian poet and writer

Ian Williams is a Canadian poet and fiction writer. His collection of short stories, Not Anyone's Anything, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, and his debut novel, Reproduction, was awarded the 2019 Giller Prize. His work has been shortlisted for various awards, as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esi Edugyan</span> Canadian novelist (born 1978)

Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels Half-Blood Blues (2011) and Washington Black (2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alix Ohlin</span> Canadian writer

Alix Ohlin is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. She was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, and lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is a recipient of the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Literature for her short story collection, We Want What We Want.

Souvankham Thammavongsa is a Laotian Canadian poet and short story writer. In 2019, she won an O. Henry Award for her short story, "Slingshot", which was published in Harper's Magazine, and in 2020 her short story collection How to Pronounce Knife won the Giller Prize.

Casey Plett is a Canadian writer, best known for her novel Little Fish, her Lambda Literary Award winning short story collection, A Safe Girl to Love, and her Giller Prize-nominated short story collection, A Dream of a Woman. Plett is a transgender woman, and she often centers this experience in her writing.

Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist, whose novel What Strange Paradise was the winner of the 2021 Giller Prize.

The Kobo Emerging Writer Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented since 2015 by online e-book and audiobook retailer and eReader manufacturer Rakuten Kobo.

<i>How to Pronounce Knife</i> 2020 short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa

How to Pronounce Knife is a short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa, published in 2020 by McClelland & Stewart. The stories in the collection centre principally on the experiences of Laotian Canadian immigrant families, sometimes from the perspective of children observing the world of adults.

The following is a list of winners and nominees in English-language categories for the Trillium Book Award, a Canadian literary award presented by Ontario Creates to honour books published by writers resident in the province of Ontario. Separate awards have been presented for French-language literature since 1994; for the winners and nominees in French-language categories, see Trillium Book Award, French.

The following is a list of winners and nominees in French-language categories for the Trillium Book Award, a Canadian literary award presented by Ontario Creates to honour books published by writers resident in the province of Ontario. Separate awards have been presented for English-language literature since 1994; for the winners and nominees in English-language categories, see Trillium Book Award, English.

Nina Dunic is the pen name of Nina Dragicevic, a Canadian writer and journalist whose debut novel The Clarion was longlisted for the 2023 Giller Prize, and shortlisted for the 2024 Trillium Book Award.

Britta Badour is a Canadian poet, whose debut collection Wires That Sputter was published in 2023.

References

  1. ↑ Ryan B. Patrick, "Why Zalika Reid-Benta wrote a short story collection that looks at growing up young and black in Toronto". CBC Books, July 9, 2019.
  2. ↑ "Zalika Reid-Benta and Britta Badour among finalists for 2024 Trillium Book Awards". CBC Books. May 7, 2024.
  3. ↑ "River Mumma by Zalika Reid-Benta". www.publishersweekly.com. November 22, 2023. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
  4. ↑ https://www.cbc.ca/books/the-best-canadian-fiction-of-2023-1.7044119 [ bare URL ]
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Zalika Reid-Benta writing novel titled River Mumma, to be published in 2023". CBC Books. Retrieved 2021-07-20.
  6. ↑ "Why Zalika Reid-Benta wrote a short story collection that looks at growing up young and black in Toronto Social Sharing". July 12, 2020. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
  7. 1 2 Deborah Dundas, "Zalika Reid-Benta's debut book puts midtown Toronto on the page at last". Toronto Star , June 7, 2019.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "Scotiabank Giller Prize Spotlight: Zalika Reid-Benta". Scotiabank Giller Prize. 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  9. ↑ "Zalika Reid-Benta". New College - University of Toronto. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  10. ↑ "Interview: Zalika Reid-Benta on Banff, Process and Vulnerability". Queen Mob's Tea House. 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  11. ↑ Chadwick, Kristi. "Talking with 'River Mumma' Author Zalika Reid-Benta | SFF Q&A". Library Journal. Retrieved 2023-12-31.
  12. ↑ "2023 ByBlacks People's Choice Awards Winners".
  13. ↑ "Zalika Reid-Benta wins the ByBlacks 2019 People's Choice Award for Authors!". Transatlantic Agency. 2020-01-21. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  14. ↑ "Danuta Gleed Literary Award". The Writers' Union of Canada. 2012-02-15. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  15. ↑ "2020 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Winners". YouTube . 25 June 2020.
  16. ↑ "Zalika Reid-Benta and Britta Badour among finalists for 2024 Trillium Book Awards". CBC Books, May 7, 2024.
  17. ↑ "Desmond Cole & Zalika Reid-Benta among finalists for $10K Toronto Book Award | CBC Books". CBC. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  18. ↑ "Seth, Téa Mutonji & Zalika Reid-Benta among finalists for $20K Trillium Book Award for Ontario books | CBC Books". CBC. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
  19. ↑ "Here are the 2021 White Pine Award finalists: 10 great Canadian books for readers in Grades 9-12 | CBC Books". CBC. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.