A bilingual author, Albert Russo writes in both English and French, his two ‘mother tongues’. He speaks five languages fluently and has a vernacular and/or reading knowledge of three other languages, in this order: English, French, Italian (his 'paternal' tongue), Spanish, German, Swahili, Portuguese and Dutch. He was born in Congo/Zaire and grew up in Central and Southern Africa (Rwanda-Burundi and Zimbabwe, the land of his mother). He then left Africa for the United States and graduated from New York University (majoring in Economics and studying Psychology). He subsequently moved to northern Italy where his father (Italian-born) settled with the family and worked there in the latter's import-export business. He subsequently returned to New York, where he taught languages, worked as a translator for World Press Review (among other magazines) and adapted films for Unicef. After a stay of 8 years in the States, he moved to Paris, France, where he still resides. He was married (and divorced) twice and has two children - Tatiana and Alexandre - of whom he is very proud.

Birth Place: Kamina,  Congo / Zaire

Accomplishments: He is the recipient of many awards, such as The American Society of Writers Fiction Award, The British Diversity Short Story Award, several New York Poetry Forum Awards, Amelia Prose and Poetry awards and the Prix Colette, among others. He has also been nominated for the W.B. Yeats and Robert Penn Warren poetry awards. His work, which has been praised by James Baldwin, Pierre Emmanuel, Paul Willems and Edmund White, has appeared worldwide in a dozen languages. His African novels have been favorably compared to V.S. Naipaul’s work, which was honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. He just got an honorable mention for 'The Crowded World of Solitude', volume 1 (the collected stories),at Writer's Digest's 13th International annual Awards. He is a member of the jury for the Prix Européen (sharing the panel with Eugene Ionesco until his death) and sat in 1996 on the panel of the prestigious Neustadt Prize for Literature, which often leads to the Nobel Prize.

www.bilingualmca.bravehost.com/russo2.html
bio and books

His most recent novels: in English: ZANY, ZAPINETTE NEW YORK, MIXED BLOOD and ECLIPSE OVER LAKE TANGANYIKA all with Domhan Books (NY); in French: L’AMANT DE MON PÈRE (Ed. Le Nouvel Athanor), ZAPINETTE CHEZ LES BELGES, l’ANCETRE NOIRE, TOUR DU MONDE DE LA POESIE GAY, LA TOUR SHALOM, all four with Editions Hors Commerce (Paris). Last publications in English: THE BENEVOLENT AMERICAN IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS (the trilogy of my award-winning African novels:‘The Black Ancestor’,'Mixed Blood' and ‘Eclipse over lake Tanganyika’), OH ZAPERETTA (the hilarious series, taught at the Catholic University of Paris), and THE CROWDED WORLD OF SOLITUDE , volumes 1 & 2, the collected stories - which has just won an honorable mention at the Writer’s Digest International Awards - and the collected poems. Award finalist in National Best Books 2007, USAbooknews for the novel SHALOM TOWER SYNDROME, featured at the LA book Festival in May/June 2008