;

Niyi Afolabi teaches Luso-Brazilian literature, Yoruba, and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Golden Cage: Regeneration in Lusophone African Literature and Culture and editor of The Afro-Brazilian Mind and Marvels of the African World, among others. He read this poem in honor of Mia Couto at the Neustadt banquet.