Uwem Akpan is a Nigerian Jesuit priest and writer. 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. It won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and was picked by the Oprah Winfrey Book Club on September 17, 2009.
Uwem Akpan was born in the southern Nigerian village of Ikot Akpan Eda; his parents were teachers. He and his three brothers grew up speaking both English and Annang. He joined the Jesuit order at the age of 19, in 1990, and in 2000 studied theology in Nairobi, Kenya. He became a priest on July 19, 2003; he later earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Michigan in the United States. He has also studied theology at Creighton University and philosophy at Gonzaga University.
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