| Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel | |
| Birth Name: | Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel |
| Birth Date: | 6 November 1966 |
| Birth Place: | Santa Isabel, Guinea, Spain (now Malabo, Equatorial Guinea) |
| Nationality: | Equatoguinean |
| Occupation: | Author, essayist, activist |
Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel (born 6 November 1966) is an Equatoguinean author and activist. His parents were from the remote island of Annobón, off the West African coast. He is at the center of the feature award-winning documentary The Writer From a Country Without Bookstores.[1]
For many years Ávila Laurel was one of the best known authors from Equatorial Guinea who opted not to live in exile. He has been a constant thorn in the side of his country's long-standing dictatorial government, engaging in protest and political activism.
His first novel to be published in English, By Night the Mountain Burns (And Other Stories, 2014), was shortlisted for the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and is based on his time growing up on Annobón. The Gurugu Pledge, his second novel to appear in English, was published by And Other Stories in 2017.
Ávila Laurel made headlines in 2011 by embarking on an anti-government hunger strike, and now lives in exile in Barcelona.
In 2003 he was appointed Joseph G. Astman Distinguished Faculty Lecturer at Hofstra University, New York. He has spoken at conferences in Korea, Switzerland, Spain and the United States. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including novels, plays, poetry, essays, and film scripts, and has several unpublished manuscripts, some of them forthcoming. Among his published titles are: