Saleema Nawaz is a Canadian author whose works of short fiction have been published in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, PRISM International, Grain, The Dalhousie Review, and The New Quarterly. Nawaz was born in Ottawa, Ontario and later moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in order to study English at the University of Manitoba, where she received her M.A. with a creative writing thesis. Her first complete collection of short fiction, entitled Mother Superior, was published by Freehand Books in 2008. Nawaz completed her first novel, Bone and Bread, published by Anansi Press in 2013, while residing in Montreal, Quebec.
Saleema Nawaz was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. An only child, Nawaz was raised solely by her Caucasian Nova Scotian mother in the Ottawa neighbourhood of Centretown, in the absence of her Indian father. Nawaz claims to have begun showing interest in writing fiction as early as the first grade. During her high school years she attended Lisgar Collegiate Institute, a highly regarded public school near her Centretown home. Upon graduation from high school Nawaz attended Carleton University in Ottawa, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Humanities.
After receiving a Bachelor of Humanities at Carleton, Nawaz moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba to pursue her M.A. at the University of Manitoba. The M.A. program at the University of Manitoba interested Nawaz because it offered a Creative Thesis option. Since obtaining her degree, Nawaz has attended a writing studio program at the Banff Centre for the Arts and currently resides in Montreal, Quebec where she does administrative work for McGill University.
Nawaz' novella The White Dress won her the Robert Kroetsch Award for Best Creative Thesis in 2006. This award is given to the writer of the best creative thesis each year out of all University of Manitoba M.A. graduates. In the following years, Nawaz published several individual short stories in various literary publications across Canada.
''Mother Superior''
In 2008, Nawaz published a collection of seven stories and two novellas entitled Mother Superior. The collection includes five previously published short stories as well as two previously unpublished short stories and two previously unpublished novellas. Mother Superior has generally been met with positive reviews, was a finalist for the prestigious McAuslan First Book Prize from the Quebec Writers' Federation. The stories in Mother Superior follow a diverse cast of female protagonists struggling with issues such as racism, abuse, death, anorexia, pregnancy and motherhood. Mother Superior is published by Freehand Books.
''Bone and Bread''
Nawaz's first novel was called Bone and Bread was edited by Melanie Little Anansi’s former senior fiction editor. Its narrative follows two sisters and is set in Montreal. The sisters are from her previously published short story "Bloodlines" twenty years after their original story. In 2016, Bone and Bread was defended by Farah Mohamed on CBC's Canada Reads competition.
''Songs for the End of the World''
Nawaz's upcoming novel, which took her seven years to write, is a dystopian novel about a coronavirus that ravages the world. Given the 'eerie similarities' to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the publisher McClelland & Stewart decided to move up the publication of the e-book to April 14, 2020. The print book is still scheduled to be released on August 25, 2020.
