Valeria Luiselli grew up in South Africa after being born in Mexico City in 1983. She was named to the National Book Foundation's list of 5 under 35 in 2014. Faces in the Crowd, her debut novel, received high praise and was awarded the 2015 Art Seidenbaum Prize for Debut Fiction by the Los Angeles Times. Luiselli's fiction and essays have been published in Granta, McSweeney's, and the New York Times, among other media.