Alisa Ganieva is an author, journalist, and literary critic from Dagestan. Her controversial debut novel, Salaam, Dalgat! was published under a male pseudonym and received the prestigious Debut Prize—Ganieva revealed her true identity only at the award ceremony. The Mountain and the Wall, published in Russia in 2012, was recently released in the US; her follow up, The Bride and the Bridegroom, has been short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize. In 2015, the Guardian named Ganieva one of Moscow’s “30 Under 30.” She works as an editor in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper’s book review supplement and is a TV presenter on a Russian independent channel, where she interviews experts in politics, economics, and culture. She lives in Moscow, Russia.