Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Fulbright Scholar and Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Translation in the MFA program at Queens College in NYC, she is the author of Beneath The Lion’s Gaze (W. W. Norton & Company), named one of the Ten Best Contemporary African Books by The Guardian. Her works can be found in The New Yorker, Granta and The New York Times, among other publications. Maaza’s recent book The Shadow King earned the Bridge Book Award for Fiction in 2019. Thanks to the prize, the book has been translated in Italian and published by Einaudi with the title Il Re Ombra in 2021. For this translation the book has been awarded also for the XV edition of the Gregor Von Rezzori Prize. Maaza Mengiste lives in New York City.