Fatima Shaik

Biography

Fatima Shaik, the twenty-second Louisiana Writer Award recipient, is the author of seven books. Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 2022 Book of the Year award, the American Book Award, and Kirkus Reviews named it one of the best nonfiction books of 2021. Shaik has written for The Southern Review, Callaloo, Tribes, The Root, In These Times, and The New York Times.

In addition to her appearance at the festival on Saturday, October 28, Shaik is also conducting a writing workshop (what we like to call a WordShop) during the day on Friday, October 27 entitled Bringing History Home. Find out more about the class, including how to register, on the WordShops page of our website.


Schedule

10:00 am to 10:45 am
State Library, Second Floor Meeting Room
More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
(Ages 10 to 14)
with Michael G. Long, Yohuru Williams, and moderator Fatima Shaik

2:15 pm to 3:00 pm
House Committee Room 3
Good Things Come in Small Packages: Short Fiction Exploring Dreams, Loss, Love, and Life
with Joy E. Rancatore, Fatima Shaik, and Amos Jasper Wright IV

3:15 pm to 4:00 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing


NameOAuthor

What Went Missing and What Got Found

A love letter to the entertaining, unpredictable, and flawed characters who populated New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, What Went Missing and What Got Found is a lyrical short story collection with undertones of the blues.

Set in a deep-rooted community, the book describes the inner lives of outsiders with humor and tenderness. There are religious zealots, day-dreaming musicians, failed romantics, and more a mute woman who believes that the photos of starving children in the newspaper are speaking to her, a man who mourns the loss of his true love while being accused of her murder, and an old couple who spends their last night together as flood waters rise around their bed.

The Short Story Review wrote about Shaik's previous adult book, The Mayor of New Orleans: Just Talking Jazz, The trio of novellas is set in and around New Orleans where the mixed-race Creoles speak their own dialect...Shaik writes with empathy and compassion about the lower rungs of New Orleans society. There are no villains here, nor is there the damp-palm voyeurism we have seen in other New Orleans-set stories. National Public Radio called her book a terrific, charging solo. Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus, and the San Francisco Chronicle also praised the collection.

Xavier University of Louisiana through its imprints -- the Xavier University Press, the Xavier Review and the Xavier Review Press -- began publishing in 1937 and has featured Ernest Gaines, Walker Percy, Andre Dubus, James Lee Burke, Nancy Lemann and others.

What Went Missing and What Got Found adds to the rich diversity of voices in contemporary fiction and to our understanding of Southern literature.

Volunteer

Book-loving volunteers are essential to the Louisiana Book Festival's success. Whether it's escorting authors, guiding visitors, selling refreshments, working with children in the Young Readers Pavilion or other fun and rewarding assignments, the Louisiana Book Festival wants you to join the volunteer team.

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