Books: "Brown Girl in the Ring" author Hopkinson gets Honorary doctorate

Critically acclaimed author Professor Nalo Hopkinson received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the Vice-Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University, Professor Iain Martin, during a graduation ceremony in Cambridge, United Kingdom, last month.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Nalo is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, in the United States, and valued mentor to several of Anglia Ruskin's Creative Writing students.

Nalo's first book, Brown Girl in the Ring, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and was a finalist in the 'Battle of the Books' television show, Canada Reads.

In 1999, Nalo received the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for Emerging Writers, and she was the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Her second novel, Midnight Robber, published in 2000, was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. And her 2001 novel, Skin Folk, won the World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.

Published in 2003, The Salt Roads received the Gaylactic Spectrum Award. And in 2008, her novel The New Moon's Arms received the Prix Aurora Award - Canada's reader-nominated award for science fiction and fantasy. The New Moon's Arms also won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, making her the first author to receive the Sunburst Award twice.

She will be guest of honour at the 2017 World Science Fiction Convention, the highest accolade that the science fiction field has to offer.