Mia Couto, whose real name is António Emílio Leite Couto, was born in Beira, the second largest city in Mozambique, in 1955. He moved to Lourenço Marques in 1971 to study medicine at the colonial university. After the independence, he got a degree in Biology at the Eduardo Mondlane University. He worked as a journalist with the newspaper A Tribuna and was the director of Agência de Informação de Moçambique. He ran the magazine Tempo and worked for the newspaper Notícias. His first published literary work was a collection of poems, Raiz de Orvalho (Dew's Root, 1983). Since then, he published several novels, as well as collections of short stories, chronicles and novellas. Among them, Vozes Anoitecidas (Voices Made Night, 1986); Cada Homem É uma Raça (Every Man Is a ...

Paulina Chiziane was born in Manjacaze, in the southern province of Gaza, in 1955, in a chope family. In her early childhood, she moved to Lourenço Marques to study in a catholic school, where she learned Portuguese. During the anti-colonial struggle carried out by FRELIMO, she joined a youth liberation group. After the independence, she worked in the Ministry of Health and in the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1985 she joined the Red Cross to help people during the post-independence conflicts that were affecting Mozambique. Chiziane’s career as a writer started in 1990 when she published the novel Balada de Amor ao Vento [Ballad of the Love to Wind]. Since then, she published four novels Ventos do Apocalipse [Winds of the Apocalypse] (1993), O Sétimo Juramento [The Seventh Oath] (2000), Niketche ...

Ungulani Ba Ka Khosa, whose Portuguese name is Francisco Esaú Cossa, was born in 1957 in Inhaminga, in the province of Sofala. Speaker of Tsonga, Khosa attended primary school in Sofala and secondary school in the province of Zambézia. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in History and Geography from the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo. After the independence, Khosa became a school teacher and worked for the Ministry of Education. He is now the Director of the Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco (National Institute of the Book and Disc). His literary career started with his participation in the literary magazine Charrua and the publication of his first novel Ualalapi (1987). Since then he published three more novels — No Reino dos Abutres (In the Kingdom of Vultures, 2002) ...