Luljeta Lleshanaku

Luljeta Lleshanaku was born in Elbasan, Albania, in 1968. Lleshanaku won the National Silver Pen Prize in 2000 and the International Kristal Vilenica Prize in 2009. She was a resident at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 1999, and a fellow at the Black Mountain Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2008. Her collection Child of Nature (New Directions, 2010) was a finalist for the 2011 Best Translated Book Award.