Uzodinma Iweala (b. November 5, 1982) is an author who hails from Washington, DC and Nigeria. His debut novel, Beasts of No Nation, is a formation of his thesis work at Harvard. It depicts a child soldier in an unnamed African country. The book, published in 2005, has received considerable critical acclaim from sources like Time Magazine, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Times, and Rolling Stone. The son of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Iweala attended St. Albans School in Washington D.C. and is a recent graduate of Harvard College. He is currently a medical student at Columbia University, class of 2011.

In 2007, he was named one as one of Granta magazine's 20 best young American novelists