Farah Ahamed has made the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Mother Earth. Ahamed described Mother Earth as “dust, dirt, nurturing, mother earth.”
The longlist was selected from nearly 1,900 submissions. A team of 12 writers and editors from across Canada compiled the longlist.
“A geographically broad and still intimate story about connection to earth. The link with her own mother and the land was well done,” the readers said about Mother Earth. The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 17 and the winner will be revealed on Sept. 22.
First lines
After we’d finished sweeping the mosque with a faagia, a handmade broom of wooden sticks, my mother would gather all the dust from the floor into a small piece of paper, fold it and take it home. She used to say that even the dust from the mosque, God’s house, was precious. When she died from a sudden illness, I found dozens of small, folded pieces of paper with that dust in one of her drawers, under the newspaper that lined it.
The source of inspiration
“Recently, I have been reflecting on what it means to be a finite form like an insect, bird [and] flower and how we are ultimately motes of dust. It took me back to my childhood and my mother and other forgotten memories.”