Marie Arana, a Peruvian-American author of nonfiction and fiction, is the literary director of the Library of Congress, a writer-at-large for The Washington Post and a former editor-in-chief of The Post’s Book World. Her most recent book, “Silver, Sword and Stone” was the 2019 Adult Nonfiction winner of the American Library Association Booklist’s Top of the List and was longlisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. Arana has served on the board of directors for the National Book Critics Circle and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. She is on the board of the American Writers Museum and a member of the Scholars Council at the Library of Congress. She has directed events at the Kennedy Center, chaired juries for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Awards and is an active spokesperson on Latin America, Hispanic Americans and biculturalism.