Fatimah Asghar

Fatimah Asghar works in poetry, fiction, film, education and performance. Their debut poetry collection, If They Come for Us, preceded the novel When We Were Sisters. The novel portrays three Pakistani American sisters building a family together after losing their parents, using a form shaped by Asghar’s poetic practice. It reached the 2022 National Book Award's fiction longlist and won the inaugural Carol Shields Prize in 2023. Beyond books, Asghar wrote and co-created the Emmy-nominated web series Brown Girls. They also co-edited Halal If You Hear Me with Safia Elhillo and contributed as a co-producer and episode writer to the television series Ms. Marvel. These projects join personal history, formal experimentation and collaborative storytelling across several media.