Anar Ali

Anar Ali was born in Tanzania, grew up in Alberta, and now lives in Toronto. She is an M.F.A. graduate from the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia. The title story from her first book, Baby Khaki’s Wings, was one of the stories shortlisted for the Journey Prize and published in The Journey Prize Stories 16 in 2004. Ali is also a screenwriter/filmmaker.

Fiction (Short stories)

Baby Khaki’s Wings: Stories

Toronto: Viking Canada, 2006.
PS8601 .L5 B23 2006

Publisher’s Synopsis

These richly imagined tales, by turns playful and dark, and shot through with magic, depict the lives of East African Ismailis, a Muslim community with origins in India and a history of upheaval and dislocation. Set variously in Canada and East Africa, these stories portray characters caught between home and exile, between what is real and what is imagined, what is lost and what is found. …

Awards and Honours

2006 Trillium Book Awards (Finalist)

2004 The story “Baby Khaki’s Wings” was first published in the journal Filling Station. It was shortlisted for the 16th annual awarding of The Journey Prize. It appeared in The Journey Prize Stories: From the Best of Canada’s New Writers (Toronto: M&S, 2004).

Fiction

Night of Power

Toronto: Viking, 2019.
PS8601 .L41 N54 2020

Publisher’s Synopsis (from French flap of book)

A portrait of a Muslim family–from the heady days in Uganda to hard times in a new country, and the tragic accident that forces them to confront the ghosts of the past.

Anthology (Short story)

Tok. Book 4

PS8237 .T6 T54 2009

Ali, Anar. “Safari.” In Tok. Book 4, edited by Helen Walsh. Toronto: Zephyr Press, 2009, 129-149.

Selected Criticism and Interpretation

Chilana, Rajwant Singh. “Anar Ali.” In South Asian Writers in Canada: A Bio-Bibliographical Study. Surrey, BC: Asian Publications, 2017, 165.
Z1376 .S68 C45 2017