V. Y. Mudimbe is the Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of Romance Studies and professor of comparative literature at Duke University. He is also maître de conferences at the École Pratique des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and has lectured at universities throughout Africa, Europe, and North America. Among his many works of philosophy, philology, sociology, fiction, and poetry is The Invention of Africa, cowinner of the 1989 Herskovitz Prize for African Studies. He was awarded the 1977 Senghor Grand Prize for literature in the French language, and two of his novels are available in English translation: Before the Birth of the Moon and Between Tides.