Irenosen Okojie

Last updated

Irenosen Okojie
Irenosen Okojie on the British Library.jpg
Okojie leads a discussion for the British Library in 2022
Born
Irenosen Iseghohi Okojie

Nigeria
Nationality
  • Nigerian
  • British
Alma mater London Metropolitan University
Notable work
Curandera (novel), 2024
Awards
Website www.irenosenokojie.com

Irenosen Iseghohi Okojie MBE FRSL is a Nigerian-born short story and novel writer working in London. Her stories incorporate speculative elements and also make use of her West African heritage. Her first novel, Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask Award in 2016, and her story "Grace Jones" won the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing. [1] She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.

Contents

Biography

Early years and education

Irenosen Okojie was born in Nigeria. When she was eight her family moved to the United Kingdom. Okojie attended Gresham's, a boarding school in Holt, Norfolk, before going on to St Angela's Convent School in East London and then to Stamford Boarding School for girls. Okojie returned to London to complete her education and then attended London Metropolitan University, where she studied Communications and Visual Culture.

Career

Okojie is an Arts Project Manager and Curator based in London. Her debut novel, Butterfly Fish, won a Betty Trask Award in 2016. [2] Her writing has been published in The New York Times , The Observer , The Guardian , the BBC and the Huffington Post , and she is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa , edited by Margaret Busby. [3]

Okojie has received nominations for a number of awards and she has been a judge for other literary competitions. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Her 2016 collection of short stories, Speak Gigantular, was shortlisted for the 2016 inaugural Jhalak Prize as well as the 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Her story Animal Parts was nominated for a 2016 Shirley Jackson Award, and her short story Synsepalum was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 to celebrate the BBC National Short Story Award 2018. [1]

Also in 2018, Okojie was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [9] On 19 May 2020, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing, [10] and was announced as the winner on 27 July 2020 for her story "Grace Jones". [11] [12] [13]

Okojie was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to literature. [14]

In 2023, Okojie was one of the judges of the Women's Prize for Fiction. [15]

She is the director and founder of futuristic festival Black to the Future, a multidisciplinary festival celebrating Black artists.

Honours and awards

Bibliography

References and sources

  1. 1 2 "Irenosen Okojie". Elise Dillsworth Agency (EDA). Archived from the original on 27 July 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  2. "Betty Trask Prize and Award Winners 2016" Archived 8 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine , The Society of Authors, June 2016.
  3. "New Daughters of Africa Cambridge Literary Festival", Irenosen Okojie website, 9 April 2019.
  4. "Royal Society of Literature » Irenosen Okojie". Royal Society of Literature. 30 October 2018. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  5. Evaristo, Bernardine (24 November 2016). "Speak Gigantular by Irenosen Okojie review – surreal tales of love and loneliness". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  6. "Irenosen Okojie". The Reader Berlin. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  7. "TSS Publishing". The Short Story Interview: Irenosen Okojie. 5 July 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  8. "Irenosen Okojie". Elise Dillsworth Agency. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  9. "Okojie, Irenosen". Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  10. "Irenosen Okojie". The Caine Prize for African Writing. 19 October 2023. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  11. "Caine Prize 2020: British Nigerian author Irenosen Okojie". BBC News. 27 July 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  12. Flood, Alison (27 July 2020). "Irenosen Okojie wins the Caine prize for 'stunning' short story Grace Jones". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  13. "AKO Caine Prize: Irenosen Okojie wins with story of Grace Jones impersonator". BBC News. 27 July 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  14. "No. 63377". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2021. p. B22.
  15. Passmore, Lynsey (29 October 2022). "Meet the 2023 Women's Prize for Fiction Judges". Women's Prize. Retrieved 5 July 2024.
  16. Okojie, Irenosen (7 November 2019). Nudibranch: A collection of short stories. Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN   9780349700908.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Society of Literature</span> Literature society in London

The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers. The society is a cultural tenant at London's Somerset House.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caine Prize</span> Annual award for best original short story by an African writer

The Caine Prize for African Writing is an annual literary award for the best short story by an African writer, whether in Africa or elsewhere, published in the English language. Founded in the United Kingdom in 2000, the £10,000 prize was named in memory of businessman and philanthropist Sir Michael Harris Caine, former chairman of Booker Group and of the Booker Prize management committee. The Caine Prize is sometimes called the "African Booker". The Chair of the Board is Ellah Wakatama, appointed in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sefi Atta</span> Nigerian author and playwright (born 1964)

Sefi Atta is a Nigerian-American novelist, short-story writer, playwright and screenwriter. Her books have been translated into many languages, her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and her stage plays have been performed internationally. Awards she has received include the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chika Unigwe</span> Nigerian-born Igbo author (born 1974)

Chika Nina Unigwe is a Nigerian-born Igbo author who writes in English and Dutch. In April 2014, she was selected for the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Previously based in Belgium, she now lives in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernardine Evaristo</span> British author and academic (born 1959)

Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is a British author and academic. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first Black woman to win the Booker. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London and President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first black person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nadifa Mohamed</span> Somali-British novelist (born 1981)

Nadifa Mohamed is a Somali-British novelist. She featured on Granta magazine's list "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013, and in 2014 on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Her 2021 novel, The Fortune Men, was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, making her the first British Somali novelist to get this honour. She has also written short stories, essays, memoirs and articles in outlets including The Guardian, and contributed poetry to the anthology New Daughters of Africa. Mohamed was also a lecturer in Creative Writing in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London until 2021. She became Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University in Spring 2022.

Adaobi Tricia Obinne Nwaubani is a Nigerian novelist, humorist, essayist and journalist. Her debut novel, I Do Not Come To You By Chance, won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa), a Betty Trask First Book award, and was named by The Washington Post as one of the Best Books of 2009. Her debut Young Adult novel, Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree, based on interviews with girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, was published by HarperCollins in September 2018. It won the 2018 Raven Award for Excellence in Arts and Entertainment, was named as one of the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults, and is a Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2019 selection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doreen Baingana</span> Ugandan short story writer and editor (born 1966)

Doreen Baingana is a Ugandan writer. Her short story collection, Tropical Fish, won the Grace Paley Award for Short Fiction in 2003 and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for best first book, Africa Region in 2006. Stories in it were finalists for the Caine Prize in 2004 and 2005. She was a Caine Prize finalist for the third time in 2021 and has received many other awards listed below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NoViolet Bulawayo</span> Zimbabwean author (born 1981)

NoViolet Bulawayo is the pen name of Elizabeth Zandile Tshele, a Zimbabwean author. In 2012, the National Book Foundation named her a "5 under 35" honoree. She was named one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2014. Her debut novel, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize, and her second novel, Glory, was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, making her "the first Black African woman to appear on the Booker list twice".

Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" Wyld is an Anglo-Australian author. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, won the Encore Award in 2013 and the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. Her third novel, The Bass Rock, won the Stella Prize in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellah Wakatama Allfrey</span> Zimbabwean editor and literary critic (born 1966)

Ellah Wakatama, OBE, Hon. FRSL, is the Editor-at-Large at Canongate Books, a senior Research Fellow at Manchester University, and Chair of the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing. She was the founding Publishing Director of the Indigo Press. A London-based editor and critic, she was on the judging panel of the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award and the 2015 Man Booker Prize. In 2016, she was a Visiting Professor & Global Intercultural Scholar at Goshen College, Indiana, and was the Guest Master for the 2016 Gabriel Garcia Marquez Foundation international journalism fellowship in Cartagena, Colombia. The former deputy editor of Granta magazine, she was the senior editor at Jonathan Cape, Random House and an assistant editor at Penguin. She is the series editor of the Kwani? Manuscript Project and the editor of the anthologies Africa39 and Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.

Beatrice Lamwaka is a Ugandan writer. She was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize for her story "Butterfly Dreams".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Evans</span> British novelist, journalist and critic (born 1972)

Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. A House for Alice was published in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SI Leeds Literary Prize</span> British literary award

The SI Leeds Literary Prize is a biennial award founded in 2012 by Soroptimist International of Leeds – a branch of the worldwide women's organization Soroptimist International – for unpublished fiction written by Black and Asian women resident in the UK. Submissions must be of more than 30,000 words of fiction and entrants must be aged 18 years and over. The prize offers support for writers to develop their work and to help build new audiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elnathan John</span> Nigerian novelist, satirist and lawyer (born 1982)

Elnathan John is a Nigerian novelist, satirist and lawyer whose stories have twice been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chibundu Onuzo</span> Nigerian novelist (born 1991)

Imachibundu Oluwadara Onuzo is a Nigerian novelist. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Etisalat Prize for Literature.

Jacaranda Books is a Black-owned British independent book publishing firm launched in 2012 and known for their effort promoting diversity in United Kingdom's publishing industry.

'Pemi Aguda is a Nigerian writer. Her first book, Ghostroots, was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction. She received an O'Henry Prize in 2022 for her short story "Breastmilk" and a second in 2023 for "The Hollow". "Breastmilk" was also shortlisted for the 2024 Caine Prize for African Writing. Aguda's novel-in-progress, The Suicide Mothers, won the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Award.

Erica Sugo Anyadike is a Tanzanian writer based in Kenya and was shortlisted for the 2020 Caine Prize. Her 2019 short story "How to Marry an African President" was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and for the Queen Mary Wasafiri Writing Prize. She began her career as a television writer

"Grace Jones" is young adult short story that won the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing, written by Nigerian short story writer Irenosen Okojie. It is included in her collection Nudibranch, which was published by Little, Brown and Company via its Dialogue Books imprints in 2019. The short story received critical reviews.