Born in Scotland, raised in Sierra Leone and Great Britain and spending periods of her childhood in Iran, Thailand and Zambia, Aminatta Forna is the author of the novels “Ancestor Stones,” “The Memory of Love” and “The Hired Man,” as well as the memoir “The Devil That Danced on the Water.” Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Forna’s essays have appeared in Freeman’s, Granta, The Guardian, The Nation, The New York Review of Books and The Observer. She is currently director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University. Her new novel is “Happiness: A Novel” (Atlantic Monthly).