Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Charlotte McDonald-Gibson have each garnered major accolades for their respective new books, Birth of a Dream Weaver: A Writer’s Awakening and Cast Away: True Stories of Survival from Europe’s Refugee Crisis. The Kenyan-born Thiong’o was recognized by the Toji Cultural Foundation for work that “distinctly reveals different angles of the lives of people undergoing the process of globalization.” The Pak Kyong Ni Prize was established by the foundation to commemorate and further develop the great spirit of letters. Currently a distinguished professor in the School of Humanities and the director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine, Thiong’o has been nominated for the Man Booker International Prize, among numerous other accolades. McDonald-Gibson’s Cast Away, longlisted for a 2017 Carnegie Medal in nonfiction, is a deeply moving account of five refugees’ journeys to Europe.