Iman Verjee
{{short description|Kenyan author}}
Iman Verjee is a Kenyan author who has written two books and is currently based in Edmonton, Canada.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/08/how-leaving-nairobi-helped-iman-verjee-come-home-in-her-new-novel.html|title=How leaving Nairobi (and coming back) helped Iman Verjee write her new novel|website=www.cbc.ca|access-date=2017-04-02}} Verjee was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and lived there until she was 18 before moving to Canada and England.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/08/how-leaving-nairobi-helped-iman-verjee-come-home-in-her-new-novel.html|title=How leaving Nairobi (and coming back) helped Iman Verjee write her new novel|website=www.cbc.ca|access-date=2017-04-02}}
Career
Verjee's first novel, In Between Dreams, addresses themes of child sexual abuse and was published in May 2014 by Oneworld Publications.{{Cite web|url=https://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2014/04/18/iman-verjee-publishes-her-debut-novel-in-between-dreams/|title=Iman Verjee publishes her debut novel – In Between Dreams|date=2014-04-18|website=Ismailimail|access-date=2017-04-02}} Speaking to Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation in 2014, Verjee said she focused on the topic of sexual abuse because "it’s a terrible thing to have to happen to anyone and it’s imperative that society deals with it".{{Cite news|url=http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/lifestyle/Child-sexual-abuse-Inside-the-worlds-of-victim-perpetrator/-/1214/2310488/-/ydid3nz/-/index.html|title=Child sexual abuse: Inside the worlds of victim, perpetrator|work=Daily Nation|access-date=2017-04-02|language=en-UK}}
Her second novel, Who Will Catch Us As We Fall, was published in 2016. It examines the culture of the Indian-Kenyans who arrived in Kenya during the colonial era,{{Cite web|url=https://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21705664-delicate-story-kenyan-asian-family-out-africa|title=Out of Africa|website=The Economist|access-date=2017-04-02}} focusing particularly on the tensions between Africans and Indians living in post–British imperialism Kenya. She began writing her second novel while she spent a year back in Kenya after twelve years away, after which time she observed how the city had changed in her absence.{{Cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/08/how-leaving-nairobi-helped-iman-verjee-come-home-in-her-new-novel.html|title=How leaving Nairobi (and coming back) helped Iman Verjee write her new novel|website=www.cbc.ca|access-date=2017-04-02}}
Bibliography
- In Between Dreams (2014)
- Who Will Catch Us as We Fall (2016)
Awards and recognition
Verjee is the winner of the 2012 Peters Fraser & Dunlop/City University Prize for Fiction for her novel In Between Dreams.{{Cite news|url=http://www.petersfraserdunlop.com/clients/iman-verjee/|title=Iman Verjee - Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD)|work=Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD)|access-date=2017-04-02|language=en-GB}}
References
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Category:21st-century Kenyan women writers
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Kenyan women novelists