Nneka Arimah wins Kirkus Fiction Prize
Nigeria’s Lesley Nneka Arimah’s debut short story collection, What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky has won the $50,000 Kirkus Prize for Fiction.
Arimah’s collection, publishered by Riverhead was announced the winner in a ceremony in Austin, Texas, claiming the prize ahead of Hari Kunzru’s White Tears and Booker Prize shortlisted Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West and
Other winners are Jack E. Davis, whose book The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, published by Liveright, took home the nonfiction prize. The prize for young people’s literature went to The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, published by DCB.
Arimah was born in the United Kingdom and grew up partly in Nigeria, where some of the stories in the collection are set. She moved to the United States when she was 13. The panel of judges, which included novelist Meg Wolitzer, called the book “kaleidoscopic and emotionally powerful . . . . Arimah’s stylistic breadth and intelligence are evident on every page of this masterful debut.” Arimah was recently named one of the “5 Under 35” fiction writers by the National Book Foundation.
Arimah is no stranger to winning prizes claimed the Commonwealth Short Story Prize Africa Region and has been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2015 and 2016. What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky is currently a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize.