Memory of Love (Forna) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Where—Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK
• Education—University College London
• Awards—Commonwealth Prize-Best Fiction
• Currently—lives in London, England


Aminatta Forna, OBE is a Scottish and Sierra Leonean writer. She is the author of a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water (2003), and four novels: Ancestor Stones (2006), The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013), and Happiness (2018). Her novel The Memory of Love was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in 2011, and was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction.

Background
Forna was born in Bellshill, Scotland, to a Sierra Leonean father, Mohamed Forna, and a Scottish mother, Maureen Christison. When she was six months old the family traveled to Sierra Leone, where Mohamed Forna worked as a physician. He later became involved in politics and entered government, only to resign citing a growth in political violence and corruption.

Between 1970 and 1973 Dr. Forna was imprisoned and declared an Amnesty Prisoner of Conscience.  He was hanged on charges of treason in 1975. The events of Forna's childhood and her investigation into the conspiracy surrounding her father's death are the subject of her 2003 memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water.

Forna studied law at University College London and was a Harkness Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.

Early career
Between 1989 and 1999 Forna worked for the BBC, both in radio and television, as a reporter and documentary maker in the spheres of arts and politics. She is also known for her Africa documentaries: Through African Eyes (1995), Africa Unmasked (2002), and The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (2009).

Forna is married to the furniture designer Simon Westcott and lives in south-east London.
In 2013 she assumed a post as Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Milestones and honors
In addition to her 2011 Commonwealth Prize, Forna received the 2014 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for Services to Literature in 2017. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

In 2013, Forna served as a judge for The Man Booker International Prize. In 2015 she was a judge for Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award and, in 2017, a judge for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize).

Forna is a board member of the Royal National Theatre and  sits on the advisory committee for the Royal Literary Fund, as well as the Caine Prize for African Writing. She continues to champion the work of up-and-coming diverse authors. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/5/2018.)