by Rachel Ogbu
Lesley Nneka Arimah has been shortlisted for this year’s Caine Prize for African Writing. Now in its 18th year, the shortlist was announced by the chair of judges, Ghanaian writer Nii Ayikwei Parkes who said that the shortlist “reveals the depth and strength of short story writing from Africa and its diaspora”.
Arimah was born in the UK (on Twitter, she describes herself as “Nigerian . . . ish”) and grew up wherever her father was stationed for work, which was sometimes in Nigeria. Arimah won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa in 2001, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize and for the Caine Prize in 2016 for her story, “What It Means When a Man Falls From The Sky”, which became the title story of her book.
WHAT IT MEANS WHEN A MAN FALLS FROM THE SKY (story collection; April 2017) was named one of the most anticipated books of 2017 by Time Magazine, Elle, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Millions, Nylon, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Her dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home.
Fader has just named it one of 16 books guaranteed to brighten your spring. Her work has received grants and awards from Commonwealth Writers, AWP, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Jerome Foundation and others.
Arimah who currently lives in Minneapolis said her real life was just as rooted in the spiritual, where demons and angels and spirits were as real as all of us.
Arimah told The Village Voice earlier this year, “so these are not necessarily separate sides of my storytelling, but ways in which I’m accustomed to engaging with the world.”
New York Times hails Arimah’s originality. It writes, “Arimah’s magic realism owes something to Ben Okri’s use of spirit beliefs, while her science fiction parables, with their ecological and feminist concerns, recall those of Margaret Atwood. She is conducting adventures in narrative on her own terms, keeping her streak of light, that bright ember, burning fiercely, undimmed“.
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