Taban Lo Liyong was born in 1939 in Acholiland, South Sudan. A prolific and critically acclaimed writer, he attended the National Teachers College in Kampala. He earned his undergraduate degree at Knoxville College in Tennessee, and postgraduate degree at Howard University. He is the author of poetry collections such as Frantz Fanon's Uneven Ribs (1971), Another Nigger Dead (London, Heinemann, 1972), Ballads of Underdevelopment (Kampala, East African Literature, Bureau, 1976), The Cows of Shambat (Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare, 1992), Words that Melt a Mountain (Nairobi, East African Educational Publishers, 1996), Carrying Knowledge Up a Palm Tree (1997), Corpse Lovers and Corpse Haters (2005), After Troy (2021), Meditations in Limbo (Nairobi, Equatorial, 1970), The Uniformed Man (Nairobi, East African Educational Publishers, 1971), The Meditations of Taban lo Liyong (1978), and others. He was the first African graduate from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.