Zalika Reid-Benta author biography, plus links to books by Zalika Reid-Benta.

Zalika Reid-Benta

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Canadian writer whose debut story collection, Frying Plantain, won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction. Frying Plantain was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and it was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award, the White Pine Award, and the Trillium Book Award. Her second book and debut novel, River Mumma, received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, was the 2023 October Pick for the daytime talk show Cityline Book Club and was listed as one of the best books of 2023 by CBC Books, Indigo Books, Kobo Books and The Walrus literary magazine. In 2025, Tundra Books will publish Zalika's first picture book, The Twelve Days of Jamaican Christmas. Zalika served as the 2021-2022 Writer in Residence at Western University and was the chair of the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University, was a John Gardner Fiction Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and is an alumna of the Banff Centre Writing Studio.

This biography was last updated on 02/20/2024.

The above represents the biographical information provided by the publisher for the most recent book by this author that BookBrowse has covered. As such, it is likely a brief snapshot in time. If you are looking for a more expansive biography, you may wish to do an internet search for the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.