From the book jacket: "Skin Folk is a richly vibrant collection of short fiction that ranges from Trinidad to Toronto, from fantastic folklore to frightening future, from houses of deadly haunts to realms of dark sexuality. Powerful and sensual, disturbing and triumphant, these tales explore the surface of modern existence ... and delve under the skin of eternal legends....
"Nalo Hopkinson was born in Jamaica and grew up in Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada, where she has lived since age sixteen. The daughter of a poet/playwright and a library technician, she has written the acclaimed novels Brown Girl in the Ring and Midnight Robber, and her short fiction has appeared in a number of science fiction and literary anthologies and magazines. "Brown Girl in the Ring won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, became a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award, and garnered Hopkinson the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Midnight Robber was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards."
Sunburst juror Terence M. Green says: "Skin Folk is a rich, varied collection of tales, that not only vibrates with quality, but also represents a foray into the multicultural landscape of 21st century Canadian life. Where Rohinton Mistry, Austin Clarke, Shyam Selvadurai, M.G. Vassanji and others broadened the horizons of Canadian mainstream fiction, Nalo Hopkinson pioneers into the rich possibilities for new Canadian visions in speculative fiction. Here are stories of a Toronto surfacing out of roots previously unexplored, tiptoeing on fables from the Caribbean, singing ancient songs of dream and nightmare in a new voice that truly and unabashedly celebrates the fantastic."
From her website: "I'm a writer who has so far published a collection of short stories, some plays, two novels and an anthology or two. I've lived in Toronto, Canada since 1977, but spent most of my first 16 years in the Caribbean, where I was born. My writing reflects my hybrid reality. I write speculative fiction. For anyone who doesn't know the term, it's fiction in which impossible things happen. It includes magic realism, fantasy, science fiction and horror."
Her short story collection Skin Folk won the World Fantasy Award in the fall of 2002. In 2001, her novel Midnight Robber was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award, nominated for a Hugo Award, was on the ballot for the Nebula Award, was shortlisted for the Phililp K. Dick Award and earned a shortlist position for the James R. Tiptree Award. In 2000, Midnight Robber was the New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Ms. Hopkinson was the 1999 winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and her novel Brown Girl in the Ring won the Locus Award in the First Novel category. Brown Girl in the Ring was also the winner of the Warner Aspect First Novel contest in 1997.
Her new novel, The Salt Roads, will be released by Warner Books in November 2003.
