Ondjaki

Who is Ondjaki?

Ndalu de Almeida is a writer from Angola, writing under the pen name Ondjaki. He lives in Luanda, the capital of the country, and has written poetry, children's books, short stories, novels, drama and film scripts.

Ondjaki studied sociology at the University of Lisbon, and wrote his graduation paper about Angolan writer Luandino Vieira. His literary debut came in 2000 with the poetry book Actu Sanguíneu, which was followed up with the childhood memoir Bom dia camaradas in 2001. To date he has published five novels, three collections of short stories, four collections of poetry and three children's books. He has also made a documentary film, May Cherries Grow, about his native city. His books have been translated to French, Spanish, Italian, German, Serbian, English, Polish and Swedish. In 2008 Ondjaki was awarded the Grinzane for Africa Prize in the category of Best Young Writer. In 2012, "The Guardian" named him one of its Top Five African Writers. "Granma Nineteen and the Soviet's Secrets" is his newest book to the English language and is slated for publication in the Spring of 2014 from Biblioasis.