Leonardo Valencia was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in 1969. He is the author of a short story collection, La luna nómada (1995), the novels El desterrado (2000), El libro flotante (2006), Kazbek (2008), and La escalera de Bramante (2019), and the essay collections El síndrome de Falcón (2008), Viaje al círculo de fuego (2014), and Moneda al aire: sobre la novela y la crítica (2017). His work has been included in over fifteen international anthologies and translated into English, French, Italian, Hebrew, and Bulgarian. In 2007 the Hay Festival de Bogotá 39 recognized him as one of Latin America’s most prominent writers. He is a Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar in Quito.
