Uwem Akpan

Uwem Akpan is a Nigerian writer. He is the author of Say You’re One of Them (2008), a collection of five stories. It won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and was picked by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club in 2009.

Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria; his parents were teachers. After studying humanities and philosophy at Creighton and Gonzaga universities, he got a theology degree from the Catholic University of East Africa in Kenya. He is also a graduate of the University of Michigan’s MFA program.