Mayra Santos-Febres, Author

Mayra Santos-Febres (born 1966) is a Puerto Rican author, poet, novelist, professor of literature, and literary critic who has garnered fame at home and abroad.

One of her most famous books is Sirena Selena vestida de pena (published in English as Sirena Selena), in which she describes the life of a teenaged homosexual male drag queen who works in the streets and has a talent for singing boleros. Read more here

Jenny Lumet, Screenwriter

Jenny Lumet pictured above in Vogue's Age Issue

Jenny Lumet is a screenwriter and American actress. She is the granddaughter of Lena Horne and daughter of Sidney Lumet and journalist Gail Lumet Buckley.

Henriette Diabaté

Henriette Diabaté (born March 13, 1935) is an Ivorian politician and writer. A member of the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), Diabaté was Minister of Culture from 1990 to 1993 and again in 2000; later, she was Minister of Justice from 2003 to 2005. She has been the Secretary-General of the RDR since 1999.

Diabaté was born in Bingerville. She was a professor of history from 1965 to 1995 and was a founding member of the RDR. source.

Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo is an economist and the author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa, published in the spring of 2009. The book offers proposals for developing countries to finance development, instead of relying on foreign aid. It became a New York Times bestseller upon its release in the United States and remains a bestseller amongst Political and Economic books. Her book is published internationally by Penguin Books and in the United States by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

In April 2009, TIME Magazine named Moyo one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Moyo was born and raised in Lusaka, Zambia. She holds a Doctorate in Economics from Oxford University and a Masters from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She also has an MBA in Finance and Bachelors degree in Chemistry from American University in Washington D.C. She worked for the World Bank for 2 years as a Consultant (from 1993-1995) and at Goldman Sachs for 8 years (from 2001 to 2008), where she worked in the debt capital markets and as an economist in the global macroeconomics team.
Moyo’s second book entitled How the West Was Lost is scheduled for publication with Penguin and Farrar, Straus & Giroux in Spring 2010. The book evaluates the policy decisions in the US and other Western economies that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis and examines the policies of the newest economic powers—China, Russia and the Middle East—who may now be in pole positions to become the dominant economic players of the 21st century. Read more here/source

Playwright Lynn Nottage wins Pulitzer Prize

Stories of race and gender prevailed at this year's Pulitzer Prizes, with "Ruined," Lynn Nottage's harrowing tale of survival set against the backdrop of an African civil war, winning for drama Monday and books about slavery, civil rights and Andrew Jackson also receiving awards.

In a rare victory for the short story, Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge," a collection set in New England and linked by the forthright title character, a math teacher and general scold with an understanding heart. It was the first book of short stories to win since 2000 (Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies").

Three prize winners centered on racial history, from colonial times to the 20th century.

The general nonfiction award went to "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II" by Douglas A. Blackmon, Atlanta bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham won the biography prize for "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House," a best-seller about the populist president whose sympathy for the less fortunate never extended to slaves. Continue reading here

Playwright Lynn Nottage wins Pulitzer Prize

Stories of race and gender prevailed at this year's Pulitzer Prizes, with "Ruined," Lynn Nottage's harrowing tale of survival set against the backdrop of an African civil war, winning for drama Monday and books about slavery, civil rights and Andrew Jackson also receiving awards.

In a rare victory for the short story, Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge," a collection set in New England and linked by the forthright title character, a math teacher and general scold with an understanding heart. It was the first book of short stories to win since 2000 (Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies").

Three prize winners centered on racial history, from colonial times to the 20th century.

The general nonfiction award went to "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II" by Douglas A. Blackmon, Atlanta bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham won the biography prize for "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House," a best-seller about the populist president whose sympathy for the less fortunate never extended to slaves.

"Jackson represents the best and the worst of us," Meacham said.

"It's a huge honor for me," Blackmon said of his Pulitzer, "but more importantly I hope it really validates the idea that this is a part of American history that we have ignored and neglected, and it's time for a really dramatic reinterpretation of what happened to African-Americans during that period of time."

Annette Gordon-Reed's "The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family," which received the National Book Award last fall, won for history. Gordon-Reed's book documents the life and family of Sally Hemings, the slave girl who many believe had an intimate relationship with Thomas Jefferson.

"Race is something that people are quite focused upon," said Gordon-Reed, currently in Sydney, Australia for a conference of Thomas Jefferson scholars and scheduled to give a talk on President Obama. "It's an internationally interesting subject. People here are fascinated by our history."

Minimalist Steve Reich took the music prize for "Double Sextet," while poet W.S. Merwin received his second Pulitzer for poetry, for "The Shadow of Sirius." In 1971, he won for "The Carrier of Ladders" and refused to accept the prize money in protest of the Vietnam War. This time, he'll mark the day more quietly, celebrating with his dog while his wife is out of town.

"I think it's wonderful when it happens, and if it doesn't, I think of all the great people who didn't get honored. And that's a pretty good tradition too," Merwin said.

Nottage's play, inspired by Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children," focuses on the suffering of women, particularly the inhabitants of a Congolese brothel owned by an earth mother named Mama Nadi.

While the political is never far from the surface, it is the personal that mostly concerns "Ruined," particularly in its depictions of the resourceful Mama Nadi and the young women who work for her.

"I wanted to tell the story of these women and the war in the Congo and I couldn't find anything about them in the newspapers or in the library, so I felt I had to get on a plane and go to Africa and find the story myself," Nottage said in a telephone interview. "I felt there was a complete absence in the media of their narrative. It's very different now, but when I went in 2004 that was definitely the case."

She said "Ruined" was a difficult play to write because of the nature of the material, "because the characters go through (things) so raw and brutal, it was not easy to spend time with them on a day-to-day basis."

"I think of Mama Nadi as being the ultimate businesswoman. She's a survivor," the 44-year-old playwright said. "She is a negotiator. She uses her wit and her wiles to survive a very difficult conflict."

The drama currently is on view at off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club and is a co-production with Chicago's Goodman Theatre where the play had its world premiere late last year.

Associated Press writers Jake Coyle, Erin Carlson and Hillel Italie contributed to this report.
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