Taban Lo Liyong / Taban lo-liyong is a South Sudanese poet, critic, novelist, and short-story writer, was born in South Sudan. He received his early education at Gulu High School and the Sir Samuel Baker School, and subsequently studied at a teachers’ college in Uganda, at Howard University, USA (BA), and at the University of Iowa, USA, where he was the first African to receive the MFA degree in creative writing and where he cultivated his unconventional writing style.

He has taught at several universities, including the University of Papua New Guinea, the University of Nairobi in Kenya, where he co-founded the department of literature with Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Juba University in Khartoum, Sudan. A former cultural affairs director in southern Sudan, he taught at the University of Venda in South Africa. His expertise lies in Indigenous knowledge systems of the world, poetry, essays, short stories, drama, critical essays and theorizing. Throughout his career he has authored over 30 books and contributed to various literature works.