Usman T. Malik becomes first Pakistani and Muslim to win the Crawford Award

Pakistani-American writer Usman T. Malik, know for writing fantasy that is reflective of our culture, has won the 2022 Crawford Award. This prestigious award is presented annually by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts for a first book of fantasy. Malik has won it for his short stories collection Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan. The collection was published by Kitab (Pvt) Ltd.

Usman Malik in addition to being a storyteller is a practicing medical doctor based in Lahore. He is also the co-founder of the Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction, which seeks to nurture science fiction writers of Pakistani origin.

The runners-ups for the Crawford Award were E. Lily Yu’s novel On Fragile Waves (Erewhon), and Isabel Yap’s collection Never Have I Ever (Small Beer), the committee shared.

The IAFA Crawford Award each year recognizes an outstanding new writer whose first fantasy book was published during the previous calendar year. Over its nearly 40 years history, the Crawford Award has been given to only one other book published outside the Anglo countries (Zen Cho’s Spirits Abroad published in Malaysia). A Muslim author has never won the award until now.

Sharing his sentiments at winning the award Malik said, “I am honored to have won such a prestigious award that is encouraging storytellers working with the fantasy genre. The additional joy for me comes from sharing the list with my dear friends, Lily and Isabel whose work I really admire.”

Some prominent previous winners include Charles De Lint, Joe Hill, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jonathan Lethem.

This award is administered by Gary K. Wolfe, emeritus Professor of Humanities at Roosevelt University, Chicago, and will be presented at a banquet on March 19, during the 43rd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida.

Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan is an anthology which includes seven short stories. The genre of the stories taps into various forms of speculative fiction. While each of the story is quite unique, the common factor among all of them is the desi context around which they are developed, a style of writing that sets his work apart from his peers.

Malik’s short fiction has also won the British Fantasy and the Bram Stoker awards and he has been nominated for the World Fantasy, Nebula, Locus, and Eugis Foster awards. His work has been reprinted in several Year’s Best collections, including the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy series and featured in Al-Jazeera and WIRED magazine.

Originally published at https://pk.mashable.com on February 11, 2022.