Usman T Malik becomes first Pakistani to win Bram Stoker Award for short fiction

Pakistani English writer Usman T Malik has won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction for his story The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family, according to the official blog of Desi Writers' Lounge (DWL), an online community for South Asian writers.

The Bram Stoker Awards, which honour the previous year’s best writing in 11 categories, were announced on Saturday at the World Horror Convention in Atlanta, Georgia (US). The awards are presented annually by the Horror Writers Association, an organisation of horror and dark fantasy writers and publishers.

Previous winners of the award include writers Stephen King, JK Rowling and Joyce Carol Oates.

PHOTO: FUNCTIONALLYLITERATE.ORG

According to DWL, Usman had also been nominated for the prestigious Nebula Award this year and he previously won the DRAWA Inspiration Award for Best New Writer in 2013. He has also been featured in the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Tor.com and Nightmare magazine.

His novella, The Pauper Prince and The Eucalyptus Jinn, was published by Tor.com in April. Usman is also one of the co-founders of DWL, and organizes various workshops where he instructs aspiring science fiction writers.