Chris Abani is a poet, an editor, and a professor at the University of California-Riverside. He is the recipient of a California Book Award, a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, a PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, and a Prince Claus Award. He is the author of Graceland, Song for Night, and The Virgin of Flames. He lives in Riverside, California.