Uwem Akpan

Uwem Akpan, at the University of San Francisco.

Uwem Akpan was born and raised in southern Nigeria. He is the author of Say You’re One of Them (2008), a collection of five stories (each set in a different African country) published by Little, Brown & Company. The book immediately inspired Angelique Kidjo to write the song "Agbalagba". It made the “Best of the Year” list at People magazine, Wall Street Journal, and other places.  The New York Times made it the Editor’s Choice, and Entertainment Weekly listed it at # 27 in their Best of the Decade.  Say You’re One of Them won the Commonwealth Prize (Africa Region), the Open Book Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. A New York Times and Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, it has been translated into 12 languages. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and was picked by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club on September 17, 2009, in Central Park. It was the first short story collection to receive this honor. Two months later, Oprah interviewed Uwem in Chicago as part of her bookclub event with Anderson Cooper giving short commentaries on some of the African countries in Uwem's book. The interview was streamed live simultaneously from Oprah.com, Facebook and CNN.

Uwem's second book, New York, My Village will be published in Nov 2, 2021 by WW Norton. Nobody describes New York like Uwem, and in so doing he brings the same sacramental energy he used to capture various cities of Africa to America's foremost city. You will laugh and cry, and you may not know when either begins to happen to you. In September 2021, Booklist (Nanette Donohue) believes Uwem's satire "will fit nicely alongside the works of other gimlet-eyed observers of American society, such as Colson Whitehead and James McBride."

Of the experience of setting this book in New York City, Uwem says the city has always been a mysterious and distant place to him until he lived there. "New York City has always mystified me since I first spent two weeks in the Bronx in 1993," he says on his website, uwemakpan.com . "It as only when I lived in Manhattan in 2013 that I began to understand the metro system, to visit the different neighborhoods, to enjoy the endless ethnic dishes. It didn't also take long before I discovered the city's crazy underbelly."

Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Erdrich describes the book as "A dizzying and fearless tour of New York's street culture, coffee, food, apartment life and publishing world, interleaved with memorials of war crimes and tense depictions of the human cost of trauma. Uwem Akpan has mastered the art of laugh-out-loud satire, but he leaves room for tears."

Celeste Ng (Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You) praises the book as "A searing sendup of publishing, racial biases, and humanity's near-infinite capability to look away from the most troubling parts of ourselves, New York, My Village is that rare thing: a funhouse mirror that reflects back the truth. Uwem Akpan's debut novel maps the constantly shifting ground of grappling with prejudice and guilt―and how we might find connections, and compassion, nevertheless."

Elif Batuman (Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Idiot) says "I am in awe. I'm still trying to figure out how Uwem Akpan did it. He has transformed the isolating and exhausting intricacies of war trauma into a compulsively readable novel, at once hilarious, utterly harrowing, profoundly optimistic, and horrifically informative. Unforgettable characters, deeply realistic and “relatable” interpersonal conflicts, a contagious love of life, fresh insights into the crazy-making properties of racist ideology: New York, My Village has it all. And it's the great bedbug novel of New York City we have all been waiting for, some of us without knowing it! I adored this book."

Bestselling author Father James Martins (Jesus: A Pilgrimage and Learning to Pray) is captured by the voice: "A superb story from a superb writer. The most compelling part of this debut novel of a Nigerian writer's immersion in American culture and the publishing world is the narrator's voice, utterly alive, frighteningly observant, deeply compassionate. Once that captivating voice grabs you, from the very first page, you never want to stop listening."

The Library Journal says, "In this much-anticipated debut novel, Nigerian editor Ekong Udousoro is assembling a collection of stories about the Biafran War that brutally rocked his country when he wins a publishing fellowship to continue his work in New York. He learns plenty, good and bad, about publishing (often heartlessly commercial) and about America’s inherent racism. From the author of the Commonwealth Prize and PEN Open Book Award winner Say You're One of Them, an Oprah Winfrey Book Club pick."

Juliana Rose Pignataro of Newsweek praises New York, My Village: "A propulsive and sophisticated contemporary take on the New York City publishing industry follows the immigrant winner of a prestigious fellowship into what he thinks will be the role of a lifetime. What unfolds is anything but, plus a bedbug infestation. This ambitious novel deals profoundly with the fundamental questions about diversity, tribalism and reckoning with history. "

Susan Straight (In the Country of Women) says "New York, My Village gives us an intricate braid of the terrors and legacy of war, the inimitable voice of a writer collecting stories of violence and tribalism while negotiating a different tribalism in New York, and the way one man wields the force of love and generosity."

Life

An Annang, Uwem grew up speaking both English and Annang. He attended Saint Paul's Primary School, Ekparakwa; Methodist Primary School, Usung Ibong; and Saint Anne's Primary School, Ifuho; and his secondary education was at Queen of Apostles, Afaha Obong, all in Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria. Uwem grew up listening to Annang folktales from his mom and grandparents and aunties and uncles. The Bible and the horrific experience of the Biafran War provided other avenues for stories. When he learned to read in primary school, he transferred this love for stories to books. When teachers went on strike while he was in Primary Five in the early 80s, it made no difference to him. He even grumbled when the term resumed! After studying humanities and philosophy at Creighton University and Gonzaga University, he received a theology degree from the Catholic University of East Africa in Kenya. Uwem is also a graduate of the University of Michigan's MFA program.

In 2009, Oprah Winfrey recommended Uwem Akpan's Say You’re One of Them as her 63rd book club selection. Uwem said he was humbled to learn his debut collection of short stories had caught Winfrey's eye. Oprah said that Say You're One of Them "left [her] stunned and profoundly moved." The five short stories and novellas give voice to African children growing up in the face of incredible adversity.

Between 2010 and 2017, Uwem was a Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Institute for the Humanities (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, New York), the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library (NYC, New York) and the Hank Center for Catholic Heritage (Loyola University Chicago, 2017).

Uwem lives in Gainesville, Florida, and teaches in the University of Florida's writing program.

Works

• Say You're One of Them. Hachette. 2008. ISBN 978-0-316-11378-6.
• New York, My Village. WW Norton, Nov 2021. ISBN 978-0-393-88142-4

Award

• Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize
• Winner of the PEN Open Book Award
• Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
• Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in the Fiction Category
• Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
• Nominated for the Guardian First Book Award
• Nominated for the Caine Prize for African Writing
• Longlisted for the Story Prize

External links

• www.UwemAkpan.com, author's official website.
• Say You're One of Them, official website (includes excerpt, author bio, etc.).
• "As Africa’s Horrors Rage, Suffer the Little Children", New York Times, review by Janet Maslin, June 27, 2008.
• "Unflinching Evil in 'Say You're One of Them'", NPR review by Maureen Corrigan, June 19, 2008.
• Book Review of Say You're One of Them, Joseph Adero Ngala, Director of People for Peace in Africa (PPA) in Nairobi, Kenya. This review originally was published in Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News (PPA) on 9 September 2008.