IRÈNE D’ALMEIDA is Professor of French and Francophone literatures in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Arizona. In addition to French language, Dr. d’Almeida’s teaching focuses on African literature and specifically on African women writers. Among her many publications, she is best known for her book Francophone African Women Writers: Destroying the Emptiness of Silence, the first major study of fiction and nonfiction by Francophone African women written in English.