To Grow, Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone - Nnedi Okafor - Winner, Macmillan Writer’s Prize For Africa & Wole Soyinka Prize For Literature

Nnedi Okorafor with Nobel Laureate,
Professor Wole Soyinka, at the
awards ceremony in Lagos, Nigeria.

Nnedi Okorafor, an American-born daughter of Nigerian parents, is the winner of the 2001 Hurston/Wright literary. Beside that, she has won several other literary awards among which are Macmillan Writer’s Prize and Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature, reports SEYI GESINDE.

Nnedi Okafor, the winner of Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa and Wole Soyinka’s Prize for Literature, was born in the United States to Igbo-Nigerian parents. She holds a Ph.D in English from the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Currently, she is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University, Chicago in the United States of America (USA), where she presently resides with her family.

Okafor writes her novels and stories to reflect both her West African heritage and her American life.

In 2001, she won the prestigious Hurston/Wright literary award for her story “Amphibious Green.”

Also, she is the author of the award-winning The Shadow Speaker and Zahrah the Windseeker.

The book, Zahrah, won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, and it was also shortlisted for the 2005 Carl Brandon Parallax and Kindred Awards, while it also made it to the finals at the Garden State Teen Book Award and the Golden Award.

In 2008, her book, The Shadow Speaker, became the choice of Booksense for a Tiptree Honor Book, and also got to the final stage in other award categories such as Essence Magazine Literary Award, the Andre Norton Award and the Golden Duck Award, while it emerged the NAACP Image Award nominee.

It was her children's book, Long Juju Man, that won the 2007/2008 Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa.

After that period, she has published short stories in anthologies and magazines, including Dark Matter II, Strange Horizons, Moondance magazine and Writers of the Future Volume XVIII.

While expressing her joy for becoming the winner of Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, Okafor said it was “like a great big embrace from the continent and a proud nod from the ancestors and attentive spirits. Now I can return to my work with that much more confidence in what I’m doing.”

She adored the award which has been described as Africa’s Nobel Prize, after it was inaugurated by the Lumina Foundation in 2005 and named for the Nigerian playwright, poet and political activist.

Aside the plaque she was presented with at the event, Okafor equally smiled home with a $20,000 cash award.

Added to her joy was the presence of Wole Soyinka who refered to Okafor as one of her “greatest heroes.”

When asked on how easy it was for her combining academic works with creative writing, Okafor said “It was tough…” but explained that since she loved challenges, she loved combining both. “I like a good challenge. It was good to step out of my comfort zone; it’s the only way to grow.”

Also, she said learning from her dissertation advisor, Cris Mazza, and another scholar, Eugene Wildman, helped her about the craft of writing.

“They taught me that there are rules to fiction writing. They taught that though these rules are shape shifters, they are still rules,” Okafor said.

Among her mentors also is Luis Urrea, who she said encouraged her to tell stories from the way he conducted his classes.

Another is David Schaafsma, who she said “was also extremely helpful when it came to any questions I had about young adult literature.”

Nnedi's latest short stories include “The Albino Girl” – a bestselling Amazon short story published by Amazon.com in 2008.

The “Spider the Artist” is another of her series in the Seeds of Change Anthology, edited by John Joseph Adams in 2008, followed by “On the Road.”

Her first full-length play, Full Moon, directed by A. Damani Harris, was produced by the Buxville Theater Company at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago in 2005.

Okorafor is currently working on a screenplay entitled Passion Fruit: An Urban Fairy Tale. Also, her forthcoming young adult novel, (tentatively) entitled Sunny and the Leopard People, is about teenage albino Nigerian girl who learns that she is part of a secret magical society.