Madison Smartt Bell is the author of 12 novels including Soldier’s Joy, which received the Lillian Smith Award. His eighth novel, All Souls’ Rising, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best book of the year dealing with matters of race. All Souls Rising was the first in his Haitian Revolutionary trilogy, followed by Master of the Crossroads and The Stone That the Builder Refused; Toussaint Louverture: A Biography was published in 2007. A graduate of Princeton University and Hollins College, he is Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College.