American science fiction and fantasy writer
"Jemisin" redirects here; not to be confused with
Jemison .
Nora Keita Jemisin [ 1] (born September 19, 1972) is an Americanscience fiction andfantasy writer. Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict and oppression.[ 2] [ 3] Herdebut novel ,The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms , and the subsequent books in herInheritance Trilogy received critical acclaim. She has won several awards for her work, including theLocus Award . HerBroken Earth series made her the first African American author to win theHugo Award for Best Novel , as well as the first author to win in three consecutive years, and the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy.[ 4] She won a fourth Hugo Award, for Best Novelette, in 2020 forEmergency Skin , and a fifth Hugo Award, for Best Graphic Story, in 2022 forFar Sector .[ 5] [ 6] Jemisin was a recipient of theMacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant in 2020.[ 7] In 2025, theScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named Jemisin the 42nd Damon Knight MemorialGrand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy.[ 8]
Jemisin was born inIowa City, Iowa , while her parents Noah Jemisin and Janice Jemisin were completing masters programs at theUniversity of Iowa .[ 9] She grew up inNew York City andMobile, Alabama . Jemisin attendedTulane University from 1990 to 1994, where she received a B.S. inpsychology . She went on to study counseling and earn herMaster of Education from theUniversity of Maryland . She lived in Massachusetts for ten years and then moved to New York City.[ 10] She worked as a mental health and career counselor before writing full-time.[ 10] [ 2]
A graduate of the 2002Viable Paradise writing workshop,[ 11] [ 12] Jemisin has published short stories and novels. She was a member of the Boston-area writing group BRAWLers,[ 13] and as of 2010 was a member of Altered Fluid, a speculative fiction critique group.[ 13] In 2009 and 2010, Jemisin's short story "Non-Zero Probabilities " was a finalist for theNebula andHugo Best Short Story Awards.[ 14]
Jemisin'sdebut novel ,The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms , the first volume in herInheritance Trilogy , was published in 2010. It was a finalist for the 2010Nebula Award [ 15] and shortlisted for theJames Tiptree Jr. Award (now called the Otherwise Award).[ 16] In 2011, it was a finalist for theHugo Award ,[ 17] World Fantasy Award ,[ 18] andLocus Award for Best First Novel , winning the latter.[ 19] It was followed by two further novels in the same trilogy –The Broken Kingdoms (2010) andThe Kingdom of Gods (2011).
NK Jemisin in 2011 During her delivery of the Guest of Honour speech at the 2013 Continuum in Australia, Jemisin pointed out that 10% of theScience Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) membership voted foralt-right writer Theodore Beale, known asVox Day , in his bid for the SFWA presidential position, stating that silence about Beale's views was the same as enabling them.[ 20] Canadian writerAmal El-Mohtar characterized Beale's response to Jemisin as "an appallingly racist screed".[ 21] A link to his comments was tweeted on the SFWA AuthorsTwitter feed, and Beale was subsequently expelled from the organization after a unanimous vote by the SFWA Board.[ 22]
Jemisin was a co-Guest of Honor of the 2014WisCon science fiction convention inMadison, Wisconsin .[ 23] At that time,GQ described her as having "a day job as a counseling psychologist."[ 24] She was the Author Guest of Honor atArisia 2015 inBoston , Massachusetts.[ 25] In January 2016, Jemisin started writing "Otherworldly", a bimonthly column forThe New York Times .[ 26] In May 2016, Jemisin mounted aPatreon campaign which raised sufficient funding to allow her to quit her job as a counselor and focus full-time on her writing.[ 27]
Jemisin's novelThe Fifth Season was published in 2015, the first of theBroken Earth trilogy. The novel was inspired in part from a dream Jemisin had and the protests inFerguson, Missouri about the death ofMichael Brown .[ 28] [ 29] The Fifth Season won theHugo Award for Best Novel , making Jemisin the firstAfrican-American writer to win a Hugo award in that category.[ 30] The sequels in the trilogy,The Obelisk Gate andThe Stone Sky , won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2017[ 31] and 2018,[ 32] respectively, making Jemisin the first author to win theHugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years, as well as the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy.[ 4] In 2017,Bustle called Jemisin "the sci-fi writer every woman needs to be reading".[ 33]
With Mac Walters, Jemisin co-authored the 2017 bookMass Effect: Andromeda Initiation , the second in a book series based on the video gameMass Effect: Andromeda .[ 34] Jemisin published a short story collection,How Long 'til Black Future Month? in November 2018.[ 35] It contains stories written from 2004 to 2017 and four new works.Far Sector , a twelve-issue limited series comic written by Jemisin with art by Jamal Campbell, began publication in 2019. It was nominated for the 2021Eisner Award for Best Limited Series.[ 36]
Jemisin's urban fantasy novelThe City We Became was published in March 2020. In October 2020, Jemisin was announced as a recipient of theMacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant.[ 7] In June 2021, Sony'sTriStar Pictures won the rights to adaptThe Broken Earth trilogy in a seven-figure deal with Jemisin adapting the novels for the screen herself.[ 37] In 2021, she was included in theTime 100 ,Time ' s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[ 38] The World We Make , a sequel to Jemisin's 2020 novel, was released in November 2022.
Jemisin lives and works inBrooklyn , New York.[ 39] She is first cousin once removed to stand-up comic and television hostW. Kamau Bell .[ 40] [ 41]
Jemisin is the first author to win three successiveHugo Awards for Best Novel.[ 69]
Selected bibliography [ edit ] Inheritance Trilogy[ edit ] A sequelnovella entitledThe Awakened Kingdom was released as part of an omnibus edition on December 9, 2014.[ 79]
A "triptych " entitledShades in Shadow was released on July 28, 2015. It contained three short stories, including aprequel to the trilogy.[ 80]
Broken Earth series[ edit ] Mass Effect: Andromeda [ edit ] Great Cities Series[ edit ] The short story "The City Born Great", released in 2016, is a precursor to the series and was adapted to serve as the prologue forThe City We Became .
"L'Alchimista", published inScattered, Covered, Smothered , Two Cranes Press, 2004. Honorable Mention inThe Year's Best Fantasy and Horror , 18th collection . Also available as anEscape Pod episode.[ 83] "Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows",Ideomancer , 2004. "Cloud Dragon Skies",Strange Horizons , 2005. Also anEscape Pod episode "Red Riding-Hood's Child",Fishnet , 2005. "The You Train",Strange Horizons , 2007. "Bittersweet",Abyss & Apex Magazine , 2007. "The Narcomancer",Helix , reprinted inTranscriptase , 2007. "The Brides of Heaven",Helix , reprinted inTranscriptase , 2007. "Playing Nice With God's Bowling Ball",Baen's Universe , 2008. "The Dancer's War", published inLike Twin Stars: Bisexual Erotic Stories ,Circlet Press , 2009. "Non-Zero Probabilities",Clarkesworld Magazine , 2009. "Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints in the City Beneath the Still Waters",Postscripts , 2010. "On the Banks of the River Lex",Clarkesworld Magazine , 11/2010. "The Effluent Engine", published inSteam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories , Torquere Press, 2011. "The Trojan Girl",Weird Tales , 2011. "Valedictorian", published inAfter: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia , Hyperion Book CH, 2012. "Walking Awake",Lightspeed , 2014. "Stone Hunger",Clarkesworld Magazine , 2014. "Sunshine Ninety-Nine",Popular Science , 2015. "The City Born Great", published as a Tor.com exclusive available for free online,[ 84] 2016. "Red Dirt Witch",Fantasy Magazine: PoC Destroy Fantasy , 2016. "The Evaluators",Wired , 2016. "Henosis",Uncanny Magazine , 2017. "Give Me Cornbread or Give Me Death",A People's Future of the United States , 2017. "The Storyteller's Replacement",How Long til Black Future Month , 2018. "The Elevator Dancer",How Long til Black Future Month , 2018. "Cuisine des Mémoires",How Long til Black Future Month , 2018. "Emergency Skin ",Amazon Original Stories:Forward , 2019. "The Ones Who Stay and Fight",Lightspeed Magazine, 2020. "Reckless Eyeballing", published inOut There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror, Random House, 2023. Short story collections [ edit ] ^ Shapiro, Lila (November 29, 2018)."For Reigning Fantasy Queen N.K. Jemisin, There's No Escape From Reality" .Vulture .Archived from the original on October 10, 2020. RetrievedOctober 7, 2020 . ^a b "N.K. Jemisin on THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS" .Orbit Blog (Blog). Orbit Books. August 22, 2012.Archived from the original on October 2, 2019. RetrievedAugust 28, 2018 .^ Novik, Naomi (August 12, 2015)."Book Review: 'The Fifth Season,' by N. K. Jemisin" .The New York Times .Archived from the original on September 1, 2018. RetrievedAugust 31, 2018 .^a b El-Mohtar, Amal (March 24, 2020)."When a Sinister Enemy Attacks New York, the City Fights Back" .The New York Times .ISSN 0362-4331 . RetrievedMay 22, 2020 . ^ "Hugo Awards" .Twitter .Archived from the original on January 3, 2023. 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Jemisin Is Trying to Keep the World From Ending" .GQ . RetrievedMarch 27, 2020 .But there were those in the speculative fiction community who still didn't want her, or anyone like her—a black woman born in Iowa City and raised between Mobile, Alabama and Brooklyn, New York with a day job as a mental health counselor— to have a seat at the same table as them. ^ "Guest of Honor Bios" .Arisia 2015 .Archived from the original on July 3, 2015. RetrievedJanuary 21, 2015 .^ Zutter, Natalie (January 4, 2016)."N.K. Jemisin Launches SFF Column atThe New York Times Book Review " .Tor.com . RetrievedAugust 9, 2024 . ^a b Kehe, Jason (June 7, 2016)."WIRED Book Club: Fantasy Writer N.K. Jemisin on the Weird Dreams That Fuel Her Stories" .Wired .Archived from the original on January 9, 2019. RetrievedSeptember 7, 2016 . ^ "Sometimes readers need to be traumatized, author N.K. Jemisin says" .PBS News . June 18, 2019. RetrievedMarch 20, 2025 .^ "Author Jemisin builds 'the world from scratch' | Cornell Chronicle" .news.cornell.edu .Archived from the original on March 18, 2025. RetrievedMarch 20, 2025 .^ Alter, Alexandra (August 24, 2016)."N. K. Jemisin on Diversity in Science Fiction and Inspiration From Dreams" .The New York Times .ISSN 0362-4331 .Archived from the original on August 9, 2024. RetrievedAugust 9, 2024 . ^ "2017 Hugo Awards" .The Hugo Award . December 31, 2016.Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. RetrievedAugust 11, 2017 .^ "2018 Hugo Awards" .The Hugo Award . August 19, 2018.Archived from the original on April 2, 2018. RetrievedAugust 20, 2018 .^ Wilson, Kristian (January 10, 2017)."The Sci-Fi Writer Every Woman Needs To Be Reading Has 3 New Books Coming" .Bustle .Archived from the original on August 6, 2018. RetrievedAugust 12, 2017 . ^a b Bourke, Liz (November 30, 2017)."Space Espionage — Mass Effect: Initiation by N.K. Jemisin and Mac Walters" .Tor.com . 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Dutton . pp. 24, 28.ISBN 978-1-101-98587-8 . ^ Schaub, Michael (August 22, 2016)."Women and writers of color win big at Hugo Awards and the Puppies are even sadder" .Los Angeles Times .Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. RetrievedJune 18, 2018 . ^a b "Winners of 2010 Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Awards" .Locus . June 3, 2011.Archived from the original on January 5, 2023. RetrievedJune 2, 2025 .^ "2011 Crawford Award" .Locus . January 29, 2011. RetrievedJune 2, 2025 .^ "2011 Gemmell Award Winners" .Locus . June 27, 2011.Archived from the original on June 2, 2025. RetrievedJune 2, 2025 .^ "Announcing the 2011 Locus Award Winners" .Reactor . June 25, 2011. RetrievedApril 27, 2025 .^ "The Herstory of Sense of Gender Award" (PDF) . The Japanese Association for Gender Fantasy & Science Fiction. Archived fromthe original (PDF) on January 15, 2021. RetrievedJune 2, 2025 .^ "World Fantasy Nominees and Lifetime Achievement Winners" .Locus . 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