Lupita Nyong'o covers Vogue Magazine

African Beauty looks stunning on the cover of Vogue Magazine latest issue. See photos after the cut

Lupita Nyong’o brings her talent and brilliance to a story from her native East Africa. To celebrate, she takes Vogue—and the most glorious prints of the season—to her family’s village in Kenya.

Lupita Nyong’o walks tall, much taller than her height. Her mother, Dorothy, once said that her family will forever tease her about how she walks: as if she believes she’s six feet tall. (She’s five-five.) The first time I meet her, at a laid-back taverna in Brooklyn, where she lives, I feel that walk. She is cool, straight-backed, circumspect. She doesn’t ooze emotion the way many young Americans do. She orders the green eggs and lamb, and lets the joke speak for itself, not offering a gratuitous laugh. But once we start speaking about her work, she’s all in, as if able to forget the public Lupita for a moment or two, slip inside the details of story and character, and let go.

Lupita with her paternal grandmother, Dorca, age 96, who built a dormitory for orphaned and disadvantaged schoolgirls

Lupita Nyong'o covers Vogue Magazine