Father Uwem Akpan S.J. began the writing of his collection of short stories, Say You're One of Them, under the tutelage of University Michigan's creative writing teachers, including Eileen Pollack and Nicholas Delbanco, and continued the composition of the volume while he was a fellow at the Institute for the Humanities at U-M. His stories are told from the perspectives of children caught in intense African realities they mostly do not understand. They speak in patois, are humorous, curious, attached to family and home, which makes what happens all the more devastating.
The Institute for the Humanities has invited Father Uwem back to the University of Michigan as Jill S. Harris Memorial Fellow, while it is expected that he may be able return to the Ann Arbor-based institution to teach Michigan students.
Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. After studying philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities in the U.S., 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. "My Parents' Bedroom," a story from Say You're One of Them, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing 2007.
Say You're One of Them won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) 2009, the PEN/Beyond Margins Award 2009, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and a 2009 Fiction Runner-up for the Dayton Peace Prize. In 2007, Akpan taught at a Jesuit college in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now he serves at Christ the King Church, Ilasamaja-Lagos, Nigeria. The book is also an Oprah selection.
Read an excerpt of his work here.
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