DENI BÉCHARD was born in British Columbia to French Canadian and American parents and grew up throughout Canada and the United States. His first novel, Vandal Love, (2006, Doubleday Canada) has been published in French and Arabic, and won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He has done freelance reporting from Northern Iraq as well as from Afghanistan. In 2012 and 2013, Milkweed Editions will publish "Cures for Hunger," his memoir about growing up with his father who was a bank robber, and "Empty Hands, Open Arms," a book about conservationism in the Congo.
