Born 1941, Emmanuel Dongala is a Congolese chemist and novelist. The former Dean of the Marien Ngouabi University in Brazzaville, Dongala was forced to flee to the United States from Congo when civil war broke out in 1997, and he was offered a professorship at Bard College at Simon's Rock, where he taught until 2014. He is the author of a number of highly acclaimed, award-winning books, including Johnny Mad Dog and Little Boys Come from the Stars. His work is featured in the Penguin Anthology of Modern African Poetry, and he has been a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. A film based on Johnny Mad Dog was released in 2008, and this novel also received the Cezam Prix Littéraire Inter CE Award in 2004. He lives in Massachusetts. MARJOLIJN DE JAGER was born in Indonesia (1936), raised in The Netherlands, and residing in the USA since the age of 22, Marjolijn de Jager earned a PhD. in Romance Languages and Literatures from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1975. She translates from both the Dutch and the French. Francophone African literature, the women's voices in particular, have a special place in her heart. Among her honors are an NEA grant, two NEH grants and, in 2011, the annually awarded ALA Distinguished Member Award received from the African Literature Association for scholarship, teaching, and translations of African Literature. For further information please see http: //mdejager.com