First Pakistani author Usman Malik to win Crawford Award

Pakistani-American author Usman T. Malik’s collection of short stories Midnight Doorways: Fables from Pakistan (Kitab (Pvt) Ltd.) is the first fantasy book to win the annual 2022 Crawford Prize from International Fiction Writers in Arts.

The awards committee also named as runners-up E. Lily Yu’s novel On Fragile Waves (Erewhon), and Isabel Yap’s collection Never Have I Ever (Small Beer).

The IAFA Crawford Award is presented annually to outstanding young writers whose first fantasy book was published in the previous year. In its nearly 40-year history, Crawford has been awarded to only one book published outside Anglo countries (Zen Cho’s Spirit Abroad, published in Malaysia). Muslim writers have never received the award.

Previous winners include Charles De Lint, Joe Hill, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jonathan Lethem.

The 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.

Malik’s short fiction has previously won the British Fantasy and the Bram Stoker awards and 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.