Stella Gaitano is a South Sudanese writer and human rights activist. Born in Khartoum in 1979, she studied pharmacy at Khartoum University. Since 2022, she has lived in Germany as a fellow of the PEN Germany Writer in Exile programme. She has published two short story collections: Withered Flowers (2002) and The Return (2015). Her novel Edo's Souls was published in 2023 by Dedalus Press. It was the first South Sudanese novel to win a PEN Translates Award, was short-listed for the Banipal Translation Prize, and was long-listed for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2024.