THE 2016 SPOTLIGHT AWARD WINNER

Randa Jarrar, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali (Sarabande Books)

This year's winner of The Story Prize Spotlight Award is a collection of thirteen bold and varied stories that utilize an array of narrative strategies and present characters who often are or feel like outsiders. No matter the setting Jarrar chooses or the form she employs, her storytelling skills and empathy for her characters—who are often Arab Americans—shine through.

Winners of The Story Prize Spotlight Award can be promising works by first-time authors, collections in alternative formats, or works that demonstrate an unusual perspective on the writer's craft. The winner receives a prize of $1,000.

Randa Jarrar is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. She grew up in Kuwait and Egypt, and moved to the U.S. after the first Gulf War. Her novel A Map of Home, was published in six languages and won a Hopwood Award, an Arab-American Book Award, and was named one of the best novels of 2008 by the Barnes & Noble Review. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Utne Reader, Salon.com, Guernica, The Rumpus, The Oxford American, Ploughshares, Five Chapters, and other venues. In 2010, the Hay Festival and Beirut UNESCO’s world capital of the book named Jarrar one of the most gifted writers of Arab origin under the age of 40.