Sofia Samatar

Additionally, Samatar has experimented with writing qasīdas in English. Samatar and her brother collaborated on a book of illustrated prose poems, entitled Monster Portraits, which was published in 2018 by Rose Metal Press. A sequel to A Stranger in Olondria, entitled The Winged Histories, was published by Small Beer Press in 2016.

Samatar's Monster Portraits, a collection of short fiction published in February 2018, was a finalist for the Calvino Prize.

Samatar has received various awards and recognition for her fiction and poetry. Her short story "Selkie Stories Are for Losers" was a finalist for both the 2014 Nebula and Hugo Awards for Best Short Story, as well as the British Science Fiction Association Award and the World Fantasy Award.

In 2014, Samatar won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award) for her book A Stranger in Olondria. She was also presented the World Fantasy Award for the work. In addition, Samatar received the 2014 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She likewise won the Crawford Award, and was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel.

In 2013, Samatar joined the California State University Channel Islands' faculty as an Assistant Professor of English. She taught writing and literature, and also established the institution's first Arabic class. In the fall of 2016, she joined the faculty of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

In 2013, Samatar published her first novel, the fantastical A Stranger in Olondria. The work was well received by literary critics and won several international awards.

Samatar started publishing fiction in 2012. In addition to her poetry and book reviews, her short stories have been featured in a number of literary publications which include: Stone Telling, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, and Lightspeed. Her 2013 short story "Selkie Stories Are for Losers" was widely acclaimed. A fantasy piece, its protagonist's mother is a mythological selkie. Similarly, the monster in her 2012 short story, "The Nazir" (derived from the Arabic term for "to look"), is subconsciously based on the antagonist in the traditional Somali folktale Dhegdheer ("Long-Ear").

Growing up, Samatar lived in various places around the world. She attended a Mennonite high school, and for her post-secondary education, Samatar studied at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana. She graduated from the institution in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. In 1997, Samatar earned a Master's degree in African languages and literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. She subsequently completed a Ph.D. in 2013 at the institution in the same field, with a specialization in contemporary Arabic literature. She wrote her dissertation on the Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih.

Sofia Samatar (born October 24, 1971) is an American educator, poet and writer. She is an Assistant Professor of English at James Madison University. In 2013, she published the award-winning fantasy novel A Stranger in Olondria.

Samatar was born in 1971 in a small town in northern Indiana, United States. Her father was the Somali scholar, historian and writer Said Sheikh Samatar. Her mother is a Swiss-German Mennonite from North Dakota. Sofia's parents met in 1970 in Mogadishu, Somalia, while her mother was teaching English.