Kenyan author Khadija Abdalla Bajaber on Tuesday, October 25, shattered the glass ceiling after she won the coveted Ursula K. Le Guin Prize in the United Kingdom.
The author, who was born in the Coastal city of Mombasa, won the prize for her novel titled The House of Rust.
With the win, Bajaber became the first author of a fiction novel to bag the award for a work of imaginative fiction, which is named after a legendary science fiction and fantasy author.
The book tells the story of a young girl based in Kenya who sets out to look for her missing father who works as a fisherman.
The girl is accompanied on the trip by her talking cat.
The jury of the Le Guin prize praised the author for her success in avoiding literary cliché in her narration, as per the book reviewing publication, Kirkus.
“Scene after scene is gleaming, textured, utterly devoid of cliché and arresting in its wisdom. The novel’s structure is audacious and its use of language is to die for," the jury stated in its verdict.
With the award, Bajaber will also pocket USD25,000 prize money which roughly translates to Ksh3 million when adjusted to today's inflation.
In a past interview with Poets & Writers, the author noted that she began writing the book in 2015 and submitted the past manuscript in October 2017.
"I added more to the book as we were editing, which meant writing chaotically and without rules. Then darlings were killed.
"I wouldn’t say it was hard, but it took some careful thought to figure out how to arrange everything together so that it read just right. Moving new scenes about, working in new information in old scenes, writing and editing at the same time," She explained.
The Le Guin prize was named after author Ursula K. Le Guin who passed away in 2018.
