Ben Okri: Nigerian-British author

Ben Okri is considered one of the foremost African authors in the post-modern and post-colonial traditions. Ben Okri was born on Sunday, March 15, 1959, in Minna, Nigeria, just sixteen months before the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Okri was born to Silver Oghenegueke Loloje Okri, an Urhobo man from Warri on the Niger delta, and to his Ibo wife, Grace.

Okri's father, then a railway station clerk, soon left for England to study law. The rest of the family joined him shortly afterwards. Despite young Ben's protestations, the Okris returned to Lagos in 1965, where Silver Okri set up a law practice.

Okri began writing articles and fiction in 1976, after failing to get a place at university. His first novel, written when he was still living in Nigeria, was published by Longman in 1980. Entitled Flowers and Shadows, the narrative centers on a young man’s disillusionment with corruption in postcolonial Nigerian society.

He wrote a play and a novel while working in a paint company, and then moved to England, first to study comparative literature at the University of Essex, then to continue writing in London.

In 1983, Okri became the poetry editor for the weekly magazine West Africa, in which "In the Shadow of War" was first published during that same year. By the mid-eighties, Okri's talent began to be recognized, and he continued to publish.

In 2009, he invented a newform called the Stoku, which is a cross between a short story and a haiku. This was first displayed in his book 'Tales of Freedom’, now re-titled The Comic Destiny.

Ben Okri has published many books, including The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize in 1991, & Songs of Enchantment, Astonishing the Gods and Dangerous Love.

Ben Okri’s books have won several awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore International Literary Prize and the Premio Grinanze Cavour.

In addition, he has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by the University of Westminster and the University of Essex. In 1998, he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2000 he served as the chairman of the judges for the Caine Prize for African Fiction.
Ben Okri: Nigerian-British author

Nigerian novelist: Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist born in 1930.

Born in eastern Nigeria, Chinua Achebe worked in broadcasting and the civil service before becoming a novelist.

In his first and most famous novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), he describes the breakdown of African tribal life after the arrival of the British colonizers during the last century.

In his memorable description of a traditional family, Achebe shows an understanding of the way the different cultures and rituals of Africa so often puzzle outsiders.


Another novel, A Man of the People (1966), describes a dishonest African politician who wants to make as much money as he can while he has the chance.

It is a funny sad story, pointing out how difficult it can be for a country unused to political power to run itself properly during the first years of independence.

Achebe has since written several children’s books and has greatly helped younger African writers in their efforts to get their books published.
Nigerian novelist: Chinua Achebe