We are thrilled that Dima Alzayat’s collection of stories, ALLIGATOR & OTHER STORIES, has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Fiction Prize 2021. The other books on the shortlist are The First Woman by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet and Lote by Shola von Reinhold. Dr Benjamin Bateman, one of the judges of the Fiction Prize, said, ‘These books represent the very best qualities of global anglophone literature – epic, experimental, and engaged with pressing concerns both political and planetary.’
The James Tait Black Prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats, in commemoration of her husband publisher James Tait Black. The three Prizes, for Fiction, Biography and Drama, are each worth £10,000. The judging process for the Prizes are unique, as they are judged by senior staff from within the English Literature department at the University of Edinburgh, assisted by a group of postgraduate students. Past winners include Lucy Ellmann, Olivia Laing, Eley Williams, Eimear McBride and Benjamin Markovits.
The winner will be announced in August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
ALLIGATOR & OTHER STORIES was published in 2020 by Picador in the UK and by Two Dollar Radio in the US, and will be published by Tantor in audio. It was also chosen as a finalist for the PEN America Robert W Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize 2021.
Dima Alzayat’s first book, ALLIGATOR & OTHER STORIES is an intricate, thoughtful exploration of what it is to be ‘other’: as a Syrian, as an Arab, as an immigrant, as a woman. Each story of the stories is a snapshot of those moments when unusual circumstances suddenly distinguish us from our neighbours, when our difference is thrown into relief.
Here are ‘dangerous’ women transgressing, missing children in 1970s New York, a family who were once Syrian but have now lost their name, and a young woman about to discover the hollowness of the American dream. At its centre lies ‘Alligator’: a remarkable compilation of real and invented sources, which rescues from history the story of a Syrian American couple who were murdered at the hands of the state.
‘These charged, visceral stories get under the skin and stay there. This collection heralds the arrival of an electrifying new voice.’ ― Irenosen Okojie
‘How does it feel to be an alien at home? . . . Sardonic, monstrous, tender, these well-crafted tales show us circumstances that might be our own, and let us see them through the eyes of others.’ ― Sunday Times
Dima Alzayat was born in Damascus, Syria, grew up in San Jose, California, and now lives in Manchester. She was the winner of the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award 2019, a 2018 Northern Writers’ Award, the 2017 Bristol Short Story Prize, the 2015 Bernice Slote Award, runner-up in the 2018 Deborah Rogers Award and the 2018 Zoetrope: All-Story Competition, and was Highly Commended in the 2013 Bridport Prize. She is a PhD student and associate lecturer at Lancaster University.
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