Mona Awad (born August 22, 1978) is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer known for works of darkly comic fiction.
Awad's debut novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and received the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Her second novel, Bunny, was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror and New England Book Award. Her third novel, All's Well, was likewise a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror.
She has worked as an assistant professor at Syracuse University since 2020.
Biography
Awad was born on August 22, 1978, in Montreal, Quebec. Her father, an Egyptian Muslim, immigrated to Canada in the 1970s. Her mother is a French-Canadian Catholic of Serbian and Irish descent. Awad's parents met in Montreal.
Awad moved to Mississauga, Ontario, when she was 13. There, she attended Father Michael Goetz Secondary School. Awad studied English literature at York University, earning a Bachelor of Arts from the university in 2004. She went on to earn a masters in English at the University of Edinburgh, an MFA at Brown University, and a PhD at the University of Denver.
Work
Awad's short fiction and non-fiction writing has been published in magazines including McSweeney's, The Walrus, Joyland, Post Road, St. Petersburg Review, and Maisonneuve. When Awad began writing as a columnist for Maisonneuve, she used the pseudonym Veronica Tartley.
Awad desires for her stories to provide readers with "a sense of connection" so that "people [may] feel less alone."
In 2017, Awad's short story Woman Causes Avalanche was published by the L.A. Review of Books.
Her debut book,13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, a novel (structured using linked short stories) about a woman's lifelong struggle with body image issues, won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2016. She was inspired to write the book because of her experiences growing up and struggling with her own body image. In the Los Angeles Times, Awad has been quoted as saying, she "made [music] playlists for every chapter" in 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl because it helped her "immerse" herself in the story and better "access it."
Her second novel, Bunny, was published in June, 2019, by Viking Press. Bunny tells the story of a girl named Samantha Mackey who attends a prestigious graduate program located in New England, at the fictional Warren University. There Samantha finds herself entangled in the weird rituals led by the "Bunnies" — her fellow students who are more than just the clique that they seem on the surface. It was optioned for film by Bad Robot Productions in 2023.
Her third novel, All's Well, was released on August 3, 2021, by Simon & Schuster.
Awad's fourth novel, Rouge, was released on September 12, 2023 by Simon & Schuster.
Author Margaret Atwood has called Awad her Literary Heir Apparent.
She has lived in the United States since 2009, currently in Syracuse, New York.
Bibliography
Novels
References
External links
Mona Awad: For award-winning writing and fearless storytelling, Canadian Arab Institute, Institut canado-arabe, CAI, Toronto
