Sofia Samatar ( Somali: ''Sofia Samatar'';

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: صوفيا ساماتار) is an American scholar, novelist and educator from

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. She is an associate professor of English at

James Madison University James Madison University (JMU, Madison, or James Madison) is a public university, public research university in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1908, the institution was renamed in 1938 in honor of the fourth president of the ...

Early life

Samatar was born in northern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Her father was the Somali scholar, historian and writer Said Sheikh Samatar. Her mother is a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

from

North Dakota North Dakota ( ) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota people, Dakota and Sioux peoples. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minneso ...

. Sofia's parents met in 1970 in

Mogadishu Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has ...

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

, while her mother was teaching English. Samatar attended a Mennonite high school before studying at

Goshen College Goshen College is a Private college, private Mennonite Church USA, Mennonite Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Goshen, Indiana. It was founded in 1894 as the Elkhart Institute of Science, Industry and the Arts, a ...

Goshen, Indiana Goshen ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. It is the smaller of the two principal cities of the Elkhart–Goshen Metropolitan Statistical Area, which in turn is part of the South Bend–Elkhart–Mish ...

, where she graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in English. In 1997, Samatar earned a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in African languages and literature from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

and a Ph.D. in 2013 in contemporary

Arabic literature Arabic literature ( / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is ''Adab (Islam), Adab'', which comes from a meaning of etiquett ...

Career

Samatar is an associate professor of English at

. Samatar's first novel ''A Stranger in Olondria'' was published in 2013. Samatar has also published qasīdas in English and collaborated with her brother on a book of illustrated prose poems, entitled ''Monster Portraits'', which was published in 2018 by Rose Metal Press. A sequel to ''A Stranger in Olondria'', titled ''The Winged Histories,'' was published by Small Beer Press in 2016. Samatar's main literary influences include

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

, and

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke, was an Austrian poet and novelist. Acclaimed as an Idiosyncrasy, idiosyncratic and expressive poet, he is widely recognized as ...

, as well as Somali mythology. Samatar served as a nonfiction and poetry editor for ''Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts''. In 2022, she published her first nonfiction book, ''The White Mosque'', a memoir about a trip to

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

in search of the followers of fringe religious leader Claas Epp Jr.

Awards

Samatar's short story "Selkie Stories Are for Losers" was a finalist for both the 2014

Nebula A nebula (; or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Nebulae are often star-forming regions, such as in the Pillars of Creation in ...

and

Hugo Awards The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) and chosen by its members. The award is administered by t ...

for Best Short Story, as well as the

British Science Fiction Association Award The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, ...

and the

World Fantasy Award The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous ann ...

. Samatar's poem "APACHE CHIEF" was a finalist for a

Rhysling Award __NOTOC__ The Rhysling Awards are an annual award given for the best speculative poetry, science fiction, fantasy, or horror poem of the year. The award name was dubbed by Andrew Joron in reference to a character in a science fiction story: the bl ...

. In 2014, Samatar won the

British Fantasy Award The British Fantasy Awards (BFA) are awarded annually by the British Fantasy Society (BFS), first in 1976. Prior to that they were known as The August Derleth Fantasy Awards (see August Derleth Award). First awarded in 1972 (to ''The Knight of ...

for Best Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award) for her book ''A Stranger in Olondria''. She was also presented the World Fantasy Award for the work. In addition, Samatar received the 2014 ''Astounding'' Award for Best New Writer. She likewise won the

Crawford Award The IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award (short: Crawford Award) is a literary award given to a writer whose first fantasy book was published during the preceding calendar year. It's one of several awards presented by the International Associat ...

and was a finalist for the

Locus Award for Best First Novel The Locus Award for Best First Novel is one of the annual Locus Awards presented by the science fiction and fantasy magazine '' Locus''. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year. The award for Best Fir ...

. Samatar's ''Monster Portraits,'' a collection of short fiction published in February 2018, was a finalist for the Calvino Prize. ''The White Mosque'' was a finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. It won the 2023 Bernard J. Brommel Award for Biography & Memoir (Midland Authors Book Award). ''The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain'' is a finalist for the 2025

Hugo Award for Best Novella The Hugo Award for Best Novella is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novella award is available for works of fiction of between ...

Personal

Samatar is married to American writer Keith R. Miller. They have two children. Although her father was a

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

, she is a Mennonite like her mother.

Selected bibliography

;Novels *''A Stranger in Olondria'' (Small Beer Press, 2013) *''The Winged Histories'' (Small Beer Press, 2016) ;Nonfiction *''The White Mosque'' (Catapult, 2022) *''Tone'' (with Kate Zambreno. Columbia University Press, 2023) *''Opacities'' (Soft Skull Press, 2024) ;Collection *''Tender'' (Small Beer Press, 2017) ;Short fiction *"Meet Me in Iram" (Guillotine Series No. 10, 2015) *"The Closest Thing to Animals" (''Fireside Fiction'', 2015'') *"Tender" (''OmniVerse'', 2015) *"Request for an Extension on the ''Clarity''" (''Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet'', 2015) *"Those" (''Uncanny Magazine'', 2015) *"Walkdog" (''Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories'', 2014) *"A Girl Who Comes Out of a Chamber at Regular Intervals" (''Lackington's'', 2014) *"Ogres of East Africa" (''Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History'', 2014) *"How to Get Back to the Forest" (''Lightspeed'', 2014) *"Olimpia's Ghost" (''Phantom Drift'', 2013) *"How I Met the Ghoul" (''Eleven Eleven'', 2013) *"Bess, the Landlord's Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl" (''Glitter & Mayhem'', 2013) *"I Stole the D.C.'s Eyeglass" (''We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology'', 2013) *"Dawn and the Maiden" (''Apex Magazine'', 2013) *"Selkie Stories Are for Losers" (''Strange Horizons'', 2013) *"Honey Bear" (''Clarkesworld Magazine'', 2012) *"A Brief History of Nonduality Studies" (''Expanded Horizons'', 2012) *"The Nazir" (''Ideomancer'', 2012) *''Monster Portraits'' (collection) (Rose Metal Press, 2017) *''Tender'' (collection) (Small Beer Press, 2017) *''The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain'' (novella) (Tor, 2024) ;Poetry *"Make the Night Go Faster" (''Liminality'', 2014) *"The Death of Araweilo" (''Tor.com'', 2014) *"Long-Ear" (''Stone Telling'', 2014) *"APACHE CHIEF" (''Flying Higher: An Anthology of Superhero Poetry'', 2013) *"Persephone Set Free" (''Mythic Delirium'', 2013) *"Undoomed" (''Ideomancer'', 2013) *"Shahrazad Spoils the Coffee" (''Jabberwocky'', 2012) *"Snowbound in Hamadan" (''Stone Telling'', 2012) *"Burnt Lyric" (''Goblin Fruit'', 2012) *"The Hunchback's Mother" (''inkscrawl'', 2012) *"Lost Letter" (''Strange Horizons'', 2012) *"Qasida of the Ferryman" (''Goblin Fruit'', 2012) *"The Year of Disasters" (''Bull Spec'', 2012) *"Girl Hours" (''Stone Telling'', 2011) *"The Sand Diviner" (''Stone Telling'', 2011)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Samatar, Sofia 1971 births 20th-century Somalian women writers 20th-century Somalian writers 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American poets 21st-century American short story writers 21st-century American women writers 21st-century Somalian women writers 21st-century Somalian writers African-American Christians African-American novelists African-American poets African-American women academics African-American women writers American Mennonites American people of German descent American people of Somali descent American people of Swiss descent American science fiction writers American women academics American women novelists American women poets American women short story writers California State University, Channel Islands faculty Christians from Indiana Goshen College alumni James Madison University faculty John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer winners Living people Mennonite poets Novelists from Indiana Poets from Indiana Somalian women novelists University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni American weird fiction writers American women science fiction and fantasy writers World Fantasy Award–winning writers Memoirists from Indiana