SHANI MOOTOO is a novelist, poet, and visual artist. Her novels include Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and short-listed for a Lambda Literary Award; Valmiki’s Daughter, long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize; He Drown She in the Sea, long-listed for the Dublin Impac Award; and Cereus Blooms at Night, short-listed for several prizes including the Giller Prize, and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. She is also a recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, and the Dr. James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize. Her latest novel is Polar Vortex. Photograph by Ramesh Pooran