Shawn's Writing News

Nigerian Writer Rewarded by Oprah

Nigerian Writer Rewarded by Oprah

by Richard Chowning

Uwem Akpan’s short story collection Say You’re One of Them won several nominations and awards. Yet nothing compared to the notoriety and financial rewards that came his way when in 2009 Oprah Winfrey selected the collection for her book club.

Akpan was born in southern Nigeria in the village of Ikot Akpan Eda, his family’s ancestral home. His parents were school teachers and he grew up speaking English as well as Annang, his mother tongue. He pursued religious studies at Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya culminating in his ordination as a Jesuit Priest. He went on to study Humanities at Campion House, a scholarly Jesuit community attached to Creighton University in the United States. Before returning home, he pursued philosophy at Gonzaga University in Washington State for two years as well.

In 2001, Akpan made his way back to the United States to add to add a MFA degree in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan.

Say You’re One of Them is a collection of short stories that are cameos of children in modern Africa facing most distressing situations: living on the street, child trafficking, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. Despite the characters being children, the content is written for adults. Father Akpan does not employee any vulgar language or flaunt sex. He brings the reader into the lives of these children without any raunchy rhetoric. But he leads the reader into every shocking corner of the children’s lives.

Often short story collection bear the title of one of the stories. The title of Akpan’s collection is different. It is an invitation encouraging the reader to crawl into the lives of the children as she reads. If the reader is true to Akpan’s invitation, she will find herself experiencing life from a violent and painful perspective. Most of the stories are first person narratives. Akpan chose that vantage point draw the reader into each pitiful and precarious situation.

Akpan’s stories are a must read for every government official, lecturer, aid worker, and every compassionate human being. To see, to feel, to hear, to smell and be touched by the world of these children compels us to change that world so that no other children find themselves in similar circumstances.

Akpan interest in the plight of street children came while he was a seminarian in Nairobi. The first story in the collection, “An Ex-Mass Feast”, is narrated by a child who is destitute and living on the street. It was his first short story to be published appearing in the New Yorker in 2005.

Say You’re One of Them is a brave attempt to educate readers and it does a good job of that. Akpan says he wrote the stories out of a “passionate desire to create a safer place for children all over the world,” says the Most Reverend Camillus Etokudoh, in the collection’s Afterword.

The Oprah’s Book Club edition of Say You’re One of Them comes complete with a short Reading Group Guide and an extended interview with the author.

Akpan is just one in a large cadre of successful African writers being discussed in African forums. The African literature community has gained another talented son.

About the Author

www.myweku.com

Richard Chowning lived in Africa for 25 years (16 in Kenya and 9 in Benin).  He continues to travel to Africa on business and pleasure.  He manages and writes for a half dozen African oriented websites.  www.storiesofafrica.org

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