Tierno Monénembo

A winner of some of France’s most prestigious awards, including the Prix Renaudot and the Grand Prix de la francophonie, Guinean-born (1947) author Tierno Monénembo most recently received the 2022 Baobab Prize for Best African/Diasporic Work of Literature for his novel, The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura. A refugee from Guinean dictator Ahmed Sékou Touré’s regime, Monénembo migrated to France to earn a PhD in Biochemisty. He has lived in Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, the US, and now, a professor, in France, and currently makes Paris his home. Ryan Chamberlain holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas, where he currently teaches French. With Carolyn F. Walton Cole Fellowships in both fiction and translation, he has worked as a subtitler for TV5Monde and served as Translation Editor for The Arkansas International.

Author photo © Bénédicte Roscot