Fatima Shaik

Fiction Writer

New Orleans- New York
US

Author's Bio

An expert in the Afro-Creole experience, Fatima Shaik writes fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. ----

Featured on the cover of the Xavier Review (Fall 2012) for the short story "Life is for the Living."

PW called her debut collection The Mayor of New Orleans, "The lush and evocative novellas" NPR concurred, "a terrific, charging solo." The Jazz of Our Street, her children's illustrated book was "a compact cultural history," according to Kirkus. "Full of period detail and vivid sensory writing," Kirkus said about her YALSA nominated novel Melitte. ----

Her work has appeared in the Southern Review, Callaloo, Tribes, the New York Times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and In These Times, and in the anthologies Breaking Ice, Streetlights and African American Literature. ----

She attended Xavier University of Louisiana before graduating from the Boston University School of Public Communication and the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She is an assistant professor at Saint Peter's University, and lives in New York City and New Orleans.

Publications & Prizes

Anthology:
Breaking Ice (Viking/Penguin, 1990)
Books:
What Went Missing and What Got Found (Xavier Review Press, 2015)
,
Melinde (Cecilie Dressler Verlag, Hamburg, 1999)
,
Melitte (Penguin, 1999)
,
On Mardi Gras Day (Dial Press, 1999)
,
Jazz of Our Street (Dial Press, 1998)
,
Melitte (Penguin, 1997)
,
The Mayor of New Orleans: Just Talking Jazz (Creative Arts Book Company, Inc., 1989)
Journals:
Callaloo
,
Double Dealer Redux
, ,
Jazz
,
Review of Contemporary Fiction
, ,
Xavier Review
Prizes won: 

Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, Kittredge Fund, New York University Scholar in Residence, Africana Studies Residency New Orleans

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
African American, Mixed-Race
Prefers to work with: 
Adults, Children
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
New Orleans
Raised in: 
New Orleans, LA
Louisiana
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Apr 06, 2015