Nora Keita Jemisin (born September 19, 1972) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, better known by her pen name N. K. Jemisin. She has also worked as a counseling psychologist. Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict and oppression. She has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award. As of her August 2018 win, the three books of her Broken Earth series have made her the first author to have won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years or for all three novels in a trilogy.
In 2009 and 2010, Jemisin’s short story “Non-Zero Probabilities” was a finalist for the Nebula and Hugo Best Short Story Awards. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the first volume in her Inheritance Trilogy, was nominated for the 2010 Nebula Award, and short-listed for the James Tiptree Jr. Award. In 2011, it was nominated for the Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and Locus Award, winning the 2011 Locus Award for Best First Novel. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms also won the Sense of Gender Awards in 2011. It was followed by two further novels in the same trilogy – The Broken Kingdoms in 2010 and The Kingdom of Gods in 2011.
In 2016, Jemisin’s novel The Fifth Season won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, making her the first African-American writer to win a Hugo award in that category. Its sequels, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2017 and 2018, respectively.
In October 2020, Jemisin was announced as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant.
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