David Brookshaw was born in London. He is Professor of Luso-Brazilian Studies at Bristol University, UK, with a specialist interest in postcolonial literatures in Portuguese, comparative literature,and literary translation. He has translated a number of books by Mia Couto, including most recently Sleepwalking Land (2006), and A River Called Time (in press). He has also compiled an anthology of stories by the Portuguese writer José Rodrigues Miguéis, who lived for many years in New York City, The Polyhedric Mirror: Tales of American Life, as well as translating stories of immigrant life in North America by the Portuguese/Azorean/New England writer Onésimo Almeida, Tales from the Tenth Island, both of which were published in 2006.