Nkem Nwankwo (12 June 1936 – 12 June 2001) was a Nigerian novelist and poet.
Biography Born in Nawfia-Awka, a village near the Igbo city of Onitsha in Anambra State, southeastern Nigeria, Nwankwo attended University College in Ibadan (the capital city of Oyo State, southwest Nigeria), gaining a BA degree in 1962. After graduating, he took a teaching job at Ibadan Grammar School, before going on to write for magazines, including Drum, and working for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation.Oyekan Owomoyela, The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945, Columbia University Press, 2008, pp. 132–33.
He wrote several stories for children that were published in 1963 such as Tales Out of School. He then wrote More Tales out of School in 1965.
Writer of short stories and poems, Nwankwo gained significant attention with his first novel Danda (1964),Lynn, Thomas J., "Tricksters Don't Walk the Dogma: Nkem Nwankwo's 'Danda'", College Literature, Summer 2005, Vol. 32, Issue 3, p. 1. which was made into a widely performed musical that was entered in the 1966 World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. During the Nigerian Civil War Nwankwo worked on Biafra's Arts Council. In 1968, in collaboration with Samuel X. Ifekjika, he wrote Biafra: The Making of a Nation. After the civil war, he returned to Lagos and worked on the national newspaper, the Daily Times. His subsequent works included the satire My Mercedes Is Bigger than Yours.
During the 1970s, Nwankwo earned a Master's and Ph.D. at Indiana University. He also wrote about corruption in Nigeria. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States and taught at Michigan State University and Tennessee State University."Nkem Nwankwo". Anderson Brown's Literary Blog, 11 January 2010.
He died in his sleep in Tennessee, from complications from a heart imbalance that he had been battling for some years.Tunde Okoli, "Nigeria: Author, Nkem Nwankwo is Dead", AllAfrica, 3 July 2001.
Books The Scapegoat — 1984 (Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishers) My Mercedes Is Bigger than Yours — 1975 Danda - 1963 (Lagos: African Universities Press; London: Deutsch, 1964) Tales Out of School (short stories; 1963)
Short stories The Gambler, in: Black Orpheus no. 9Black Orpheus was an influential literary periodical in Ibadan, founded in 1957 by Ulli Beier, see Bernth Lindfors, Black Orpheus, in: European-language Writing in Sub-Saharan Africa, Vol. 2, John Benjamins Publishing, 1986, pp. 669–679. His Mother, in: Nigeria Magazine no. 80, March 1964 The Man Who Lost in: Nigeria Magazine no. 84, March 1965
Other Sex Has Been Good To Me (reprint of essays), 2004 Shadow of the Masquerade (autobiography), Nashville, TN: Niger House Publications 1994, pp. 58–61 A Song for Fela & Other Poems. Nashville, TN: Nigerhouse, 1993 Theatre reviews in: Nigeria Magazine no. 72, March 1962
References
Akwanya, A. N. The Self in the Mirror: Nkem Nwankwo and the Study of Exhibitionism in: OKIKE 39 (1988) 39–52.
External links "Nkem Nwankwo". Anderson Brown's Literary Blog, 11 January 2010. G. D. Killam and Alicia L. Kerfoot, Student Encyclopedia of African Literature, ABC-CLIO, 2008, p 221