Hammour Ziada is an award-winning Sudanese writer and journalist. His previous novel The Longing of the Derwish won the 2014 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature and was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The publication of a short story tackling child abuse in Sudan had previously exposed him to violent criticism from conservative and Islamist currents. In 2009, his home in Khartoum was set to fire and he has been living in Cairo ever since.