Ausma Zehanat Khan is the author of The Unquiet Dead, published by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books, and winner of the Barry Award, the Arthur Ellis Award and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award for Best First Novel, as well as a 2016 Macavity Award finalist. Works in Khan's critically acclaimed Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery series include The Language of Secrets, A Death in Sarajevo, Among the Ruins, and A Dangerous Crossing. In A Deadly Divide, the fifth and latest book in the series, Detectives Khattak and Getty investigate a mosque shooting in Quebec, and explore the after-effects of a rising tide of Islamophobia in both the province and the nation. CrimeReads named Khan one of the Rising Stars of Crime Fiction in the 2010s, and both CrimeReads and Library Journal named A Deadly Divide one of the best crime novels of 2019.
Khan has been featured in a Shondaland profile of Muslim Women Authors Everyone Should Know, and as Ms. Chatelaine in Chatelaine magazine. Most recently, she was profiled on Public Radio International. She frequently appears on CBC Radio, and has been interviewed by the BBC World Service and BBC Radio Woman's Hour, as well as appearing on CTV Your Morning, CBS and The Agenda.
The Bloodprint, Ausma Zehanat Khan's fantasy debut, has been hailed as "one of the year's finest fantasy debuts". Published by Harper Voyager US & UK, The Bloodprint is Book One of The Khorasan Archives, a four-book epic fantasy series, that was followed by The Black Khan in October 2018, and The Blue Eye in 2019. In 2019, Khan was a Sirens Guest of Honor. The Bladebone, the epic conclusion of The Khorasan Archives was published in October 2020.
Khan's non-fiction book, Ramadan, for middle-grade students, was published by Orca Books as part of the Origins series in Spring 2018. It was selected as a Children's Book Council Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People 2019, and as the Children's Literature Roundtable of Canada's 2019 Information Book Award Honour Book. Ramadan has also been nominated for a Hackmatack Children's Choice Award.
Khan's nonfiction essay, "Origins and Destinations", was published by Seal Press in the crime writers' anthology, Private Investigations, edited by Victoria Zackheim, in 2020. She also has the short story, "The Once and Future Qadi", forthcoming in the Sword Stone Table anthology, and a crime story in a new BAME anthology.
A frequent lecturer and commentator, Khan holds a Ph.D. in international human rights law with a research specialization in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans, from Osgoode Hall Law School. She completed her LL.B. and LL.M. at the University of Ottawa, and her B.A. in English literature & sociology at the University of Toronto.
Formerly, she served as Editor in Chief of Muslim Girl magazine. The first magazine to address a target audience of young Muslim women, Muslim Girl re-shaped the conversation about Muslim women in North America. The magazine was the subject of two documentaries, and hundreds of national and international profiles and interviews, including CNN International, Current TV, and Al Jazeera "Everywoman".
Khan practiced immigration law in Toronto and has taught international human rights law at Northwestern University, as well as human rights and business law at York University. She is a long-time community activist and writer, and currently lives in Colorado with her husband.
Khan has a new crime series forthcoming with Minotaur Books which features American Muslim detective Inaya Rahman. Inaya investigates homicides in minority communities in Colorado with her partner Catalina Hernandez, and independent monitor Areesha Adams - a trio of Muslim, Latina and Black investigators who work to change a system impervious to reform from both the inside and the outside. The series debut, Blackwater Falls, will be published in 2022.
https://www.ausmazehanatkhan.com/
Twitter: @ausmaehanat
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