Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Say You're One of Them

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Say You're One of Them

Uwem Akpan was born in Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006.

He started writing fiction during his seminary days, at night when the community computers were free but he lost much of his work to viruses.  Eventually, a friend gave him a laptop which, in his own words, 'saved me from the despair of losing my stories and made me begin to see God again in the seminary.'

"My Parents' Bedroom", a story included in this, his first book, was one of five short stories by African writers chosen as finalists for The Caine Prize for African Writing. In 2007, he began a teaching assignment at a seminary in Harare, Zimbabwe.

You can read the complete text of "An Ex-Mas Feast", one of the short stories from this collection, at BookBrowse. You can also read a Q&A with him here; and visit him online via his publisher's website here.

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This article relates to Say You're One of Them. It first ran in the September 23, 2009 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.