REID-BENTA, ZALIKA

ZALIKA REID-BENTA’s short story collection, Frying Plantain, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award, the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction, and was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award and the Forest of Reading Evergreen Award. It was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, appeared on many must-read lists, and was one of Indigo’s Best Books of the Year. Zalika is the winner of the ByBlacks People’s Choice Award for Best Author, was a Writer in Residence for Open Book, and was named a CBC Writer to Watch. She received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University, was a John Gardner Fiction Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and is an alumnus of the Banff Centre Writing Studio.