Born in 1945 in Guyana, Cyril Dabydeen came to Canada in 1970. He won the top Guyana Prize for Fiction in 2007 for his novel Drums of My Flesh, which was nominated for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. His writing has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (US), the Journey Prize, and he has twice won the Okanagan Fiction Prize. To date he has written over 17 books consisting of poetry, short stories and novels.