Uwem Akpan
Fiction writer

Say You're One Of Them
Little, Brown, 2008

Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda, in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Crieghton and Gonzaga universities, he studied theology for three years at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. Say You’re One of Them was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. The collection was also nominated for the Guardian First Book Award, the Caine Prize for African Writing, and the Story Prize. It received the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, African Region, a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as a 2009 selection for Oprah’s Book Club.

Visit the author's official website at http://www.UwemAkpan.com.