NGUGI WA THIONG’O is an award-winning novelist, playwright, and essayist from Kenya whose novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. He lives in Irvine, California.

UZODINMA IWEALA is the author of the award-winning novel Beasts of No Nation and is one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. He lives in Lagos, Nigeria, and New York City.