David Anthony Durham

David Anthony Durham has thus far built his reputation as an historical novelist. His first novel, Gabriel's Story, centered on African American settlers in the American West. Walk Through Darkness followed a runaway slave during the tense times leading up to the American Civil War. Pride of Carthage focussed on Hannibal Barca of Ancient Carthage and his war with the Roman Republic. His novels have twice been New York Times Notable Books, won two awards from the American Library Association, been translated into eight foreign languages and Gabriel's Story is in development as a feature film. Durham's forthcoming book, Acacia, strikes out in new territory, an epic fantasy in the vein of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Born in 1969 to parents of Caribbean ancestry, Durham has traveled widely throughout America and Europe and lived, along with his wife and children, in Scotland for a number of years. After receiving an MFA from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1996, he taught at the University of Maryland, University of Massachusetts, and for the Stonecoast MFA Program. He won the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Fiction Award in 1992. Currently, Durham is the MacLean Distinguished Visiting Writer at The Colorado College, but he's accepted a position as an Associate Professor at California State University Fresno.