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Rachel Ingalls was born in Boston in 1940. Her father was a Sanskrit scholar at Harvard and decoded Japanese radio messages in the war; her mother was a homemaker. She dropped out of school and spent time in Germany before studying at Radcliffe College, then moved to Britain in 1965 where she lived until her death. Her debut novel, Theft (1970), won the Authors' Club First Novel Award; and Mrs Caliban (1982) was named - to her surprise - one of the 20 best American novels since WWII by the British Book Marketing Council (alongside Toni Morrison, Philip Roth and John Updike). Over half a century, Ingalls wrote 11 story collections and novellas - all published by Faber - to great acclaim but is still relatively unknown, one of many women writers Rivka Galchen describes as 'famous for not being famous'. She died in 2019 after a revival of interest in her work. Irenosen Okojie was born in Nigeria and moved to England as a child. Her debut novel, Butterfly Fish (2015) won a Betty Trask Award; and her first story collection, Speak Gigantular (2016) was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize, a Shirley Jackson Award, and the 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Nudibranch(2019) was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize, with her story 'Grace Jones' winning the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. Curandera will be published by Dialogue Books in 2022. @IrenosenOkojie
