Osman Ladan was born in Mogadishu, Somali and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of Exiles of Eden (2019), a collection of poems that explore displacement and alienation, notably among refugees. Osman wrote The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony, poems that examine the limitations of space, imagination, and capacities, and it won the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets in 2014. She received her BA from Otterbein College and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers. A Pushcart nominee, she has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, Cave Canem, the Michener Center, and the Fine Arts Work Center. She was the recipient of the 2021 Whiting Award.