Aminatta Forna is a Scottish and Sierra Leonean writer. She is the author of a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter’s Quest, and four novels, Ancestor Stones, The Memory of Love, The Hired Man and Happiness.
1964
Bellshill, Scotland, UK
Scottish Sierra Leonian heritage
2003 Samuel Johnson Prize (shortlist), The Devil that Danced on the Water
2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award (winner), Ancestor Stones
2007 International Dublin Literary Award (nomination), Ancestor Stones
2008 Liberaturpreis (winner), Ancestor Stones
2010 Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, Ancestor Stones
2010 BBC National Short Story Award (nomination), Haywards Heath”2010 Warwick Prize for Writing (shortlist), The Memory of Love
2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (winner), The Memory of Love
2011 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist), The Memory of Love
2012 International Dublin Literary Award (shortlist), The Memory of Love
2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (Fiction), valued at $150,000 one of the largest prizes in the world of its kind.
2016 Neustadt International Prize for Literature (finalist)
2017 New Year Honours OBE for services to Literature
2019: OkayAfrica’s “One Hundred Women”
When Forna was six months old the family travelled to Sierra Leone, where Mohamed Forna worked as a physician. He later became involved in politics and entered government, only to resign citing a growth in political violence and corruption. Between 1970 and 1973 he was imprisoned and declared an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience. Mohamed Forna was hanged on charges of treason in 1975. The events of Forna’s childhood and her investigation into the conspiracy surrounding her father’s death are the subject of the memoir The Devil That Danced on the Water. The trauma of her father’s death is a contributing factor to the common theme of psychological trauma throughout many of her novels.
Forna studied law at University College London and was a Harkness Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2013 she assumed a post as Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
Forna’s work, both fiction and nonfiction, is typically concerned with the prelude and aftermath to war, memory, the conflict between private narratives and official histories, and examines how the gradual accretion of small, seemingly insignificant acts of betrayal find expression in full scale horror. In her fiction she employs multiple voices and shifting timelines.
The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002), Forna’s first book, received wide critical acclaim across the UK and the US. It was broadcast on BBC Radio and went on to become runnerup for the UK’s Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction. This memoir discusses the murder of her father, Mohamed Forna, as he was taken by the state secret police and was executed a year later. The anger and sadness of this traumatic event permeates through the writing in Forna’s memoir.
Ancestor Stones, Forna’s second book and first novel, won the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for debut fiction in the US and the Literaturpreis in Germany and was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. The Washington Post named Ancestor Stones one of the most important books of 2006. In 2007, Forna was named by Vanity Fair magazine as one of Africa’s best new writers.
The Memory of Love, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award 2011, was described by the judges as “a bold, deeply moving and accomplished novel” and Forna as “among the most talented writers in literature today”; The Memory of Love was also shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2012, the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 and the Warwick Prize for Writing. The book was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme Bookclub in discussion between Forna and James Naughtie.
Forna was one of 10 writers contributing to 10×10 Girl Rising. The film tells the stories of 10 girls in 10 developing countries. The girls’ stories are written by 10 acclaimed writers and narrated by 10 world-class actresses, including Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Freida Pinto and Cate Blanchett The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. Forna wrote through the lens of Mariama, an intelligent woman who studies engineering in university and strives to extend the opportunity of education to young girls. Her role models are also advocates of education, including Sia Koroma, who is the First Lady of Sierra Leone.
Parents – Mohamed Forna, Maureen Christison
https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/aminatta-forna accessed 19/04/2022
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/aminatta-forna-my-country-had-a-war-it-would-be-extraordinary-not-to-want-to-write-about-that-2291536.html accessed 19/04/2022
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aminatta_Forna_2112065.jpg accessed 19/04/2022
https://writersmakeworlds.com/aminatta-forna/ accessed 19/04/2022
https://www.azquotes.com/author/46151-Aminatta_Forn accessed 19/04/2022
