Janika Oza is a Canadian novelist. Her debut novel, A History of Burning, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2023 Governor General's Awards. Her short story "Fish Stories" won the 2022 O. Henry Award.
Biography
In a piece for Toronto Star discussing her ancestry, Oza explained that her "great-grandparents left British-ruled India for British-ruled East Africa in the early 1900s, where three generations of my family settled, first in Kenya and then in Uganda, until they were exiled in 1972 under the dictator Idi Amin’s decree to expel all Asians from the country." She was the first person in her family to be born in Canada. She further explained that this ancestry helped her explore the questions raised in A History of Burning.
Oza was a school settlement worker.
Awards and honours
Works
A History of Burning. McClelland & Stewart, 2023.
References
External links
21st-century Canadian novelists
Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Canadian women novelists O. Henry Award winners