Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel (1966) is Equatorial Guinea’s most translated writer. He is from Annobón, a tiny island in the Atlantic Ocean, although he has been living most of his life in the capital, Malabo. He writes in Spanish and has published a dozen titles in different genres.

He is mostly known for his novel By Night the Mountain Burns, shortlisted at the UK 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. It was the second Equatorial Guinea book ever translated in English. He has also written The load (1999), Airplane of the Rich, Thief of Pigs (2008) and Panga Rilene (2016). His latest novel published is English is The Gurugu Pledge (2017).

He was worked as a nurse, editor and candy street vendor. He actually lives in exile in Spain, after a hunger strike against the regime of Teodoro Obiang. His work is studied by scholars around the world.