Veronique Tadjo, a widely acclaimed African Francophone writer from Cote d’Ivoire, is currently the head of French Studies at the School of Literature and Language Studies at the University of Witswatersrand in South Africa. Two of her novels, As The Crow Flies and The Shadow of Imana, Travels to the Heart of Rwanda, have been translated into English as part of the African Writers Series. Her collection of poems Red Earth was published in the U.S. in a bilingual edition in 2006, and her 1990 novel Le Royaume Aveugle, was recently published in English as The Blind Kingdom. Her most recent book, the novel Reine Pokou (Queen Pokou), was awarded the Le Grand Prix d’Afrique Noire, awarded yearly to a French-speaking writer.