An assured first novel explores the bonds and divides among three orphaned sisters.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) sometimes lyrical, sometimes heartbreaking. is a 300-pager that you can’t put down-a typographically experimental work that maintains its focus on the humanity of its characters.” - Vulture and a deep play and joy embedded in the craft.” - PEN America is Fatimah’s unique voice, insistence on creating alternate possibilities of identity, relationships and humanity. “ debut lyrical novel, When We Were Sisters, explores sisterhood, orphaning, and alternate family building. “Threaded with vignettes and poetic interludes, the novel constantly morphs into the shape of. infinite complications.” - Electric Literature with a poet’s ear for language. The characters are so thoughtfully rendered, so three-dimensional in their.

“Braids lyric and narrative vignettes into a tender, vivid, heart-aching story of three orphaned sisters and the world they create together, the great beauty and stunning pain of that belonging… captured.

LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE AND THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE When We Were Sisters tenderly examines the bonds and fractures of sisterhood, names the perils of being three Muslim American girls alone against the world, and ultimately illustrates how those who’ve lost everything might still make homes in one another. The youngest, Kausar, grapples with the incomprehensible loss of their parents as she also charts out her own understanding of gender Aisha, the middle sister, spars with her “crybaby” younger sibling as she desperately tries to hold on to her sense of family in an impossible situation and Noreen, the eldest, does her best in the role of sister-mother while also trying to create a life for herself, on her own terms.Īs Kausar grows up, she must contend with the collision of her private and public worlds, and choose whether to remain in the life of love, sorrow, and codependency that she’s known or carve out a new path for herself. In this heartrending, lyrical debut work of fiction, the acclaimed author of If They Come for Us traces the intense bond of three orphaned siblings who, after their parents die, are left to raise one another.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, Time, Vox, PopSugar, Autostraddle.SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION a knife-sharp story of self-discovery.”- People

“This exquisite debut wrestles with gender, siblinghood, family, and what it means to be Muslim in America-all through the lens of love.”- Time.

When we were sisters a novel