Nadifa Mohamed was born in Hargeisa, Somaliland, in 1981. Her first novel, Black Mamba Boy, won the Betty Trask Prize; it was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the PEN Open Book Award. In 2013 she was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has recently been awarded an Arts and Literary Arts Fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation. Her second novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Prix Albert Bernard.
Fellows are nominated by peers and elected by our Council of writers – our governing Board. Being elected a Fellow of the RSL is a lifetime honour. This role gives them the opportunity to support other writers, readers and the future of literature. The RSL connects writers in the Fellowship to one another, and to a wider readership.
