Alain Mabanckou
Alain Mabanckou is a novelist, journalist, poet, and Distinguished Professor at UCLA. A French citizen born in the Republic of the Congo, he currently teaches literature in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at UCLA. Known for his novels and non-fiction writing depicting the experience of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora in France, Mabanckou is among the most recognized Franco African in the Francophone sphere in contemporary literature. He has won numerous international prizes for his writing. Some of the major prizes he has won: Prix Renaudot 2006, for Mémoires de porc-épic, Grand prix littéraire d’Afrique noire, for Bleu-Blanc- Rouge, 1999; Prix Créateurs Sans Frontières 2007 (Ministère français des Affaires Etrangères), for Mémoires de porc-épic; Prix RFO du livre 2005, for Verre cassé; Prix de La Rentrée littéraire 2006, for Mémoires de porc-épic; Prix du roman Ouest-France- Etonnants Voyageurs 2005, for Verre cassé; Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie 2005, for Verre cassé; Académie Française Prize : Grand Prix de littérature Henri Gal 2012 for his entire work; Georges Brassens Prize 2010, for Demain j’aurai vingt ans; Prix Aliénor d’Aquitaine 2006, for Mémoires de porc-épic; Prix de la Société des poètes français, 1995 for L’usure des lendemains; 2016 Puterbaugh Fellow for the entire body of work; Man Booker International Prize: 2015, Finalist; and Premio Strega Europeo: 2015, Finalist.
Ainehi Edoro
Ainehi Edoro is a Nigerian literary scholar who studies African literature and digital culture. She is a Mellon Morgridge Assistant Professor jointly appointed in the English and African Cultural Studies departments at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the founder and editor of Brittle Paper, a major news platform on African books and literary culture. Edoro's research explores how stories, in novels and on social media, present new ways of thinking about the art and philosophy of worldmaking. Her first book Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think was published by Columbia University Press in January 2026. Her recent publications include “Unruly Archives: Literary Form and the Social Media Imaginary” (ELH, 2022), “Mediated Ancestrality: Mariama Bâ, Instagram, and the Poetics of Fragmentation” (PMLA, 2025), and "African Literary Culture and the Archival Stakes of Social Media"; (Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, 2025). Her work has also appeared in mainstream platforms like The Guardian, Africa is a Country, Lit Hub, BBC World News, and SABC. Edoro is an Okay Africa and New Africa Magazine top 100 honoree.