N.S. Koenings is a fiction writer and anthropologist. She is the author of the novel The Blue Taxi  and the short story collection Theft. She grew up partly in East Africa and since 1995 has often worked as a Swahili interpreter and translator. She has translated legal documents and human rights testimonies from Tanzania, and interviews with women, peace activists and child soldiers from the DRC. N.S. Koenings teaches fiction writing in the School for Interdisciplinary Arts at Hampshire College. "The Wretched of Uhuru" is her first literary translation.