Chika Unigwe
Chika Unigwe (born June 12, 1974 in Enugu , State of Enugu ) is a Belgian writer and literary scholar of Nigerian descent who now lives in the USA and writes in Dutch . Her work has received numerous international awards. In 2012, Zukiswa Wanner named her one of the “five best African writers”.
Life
Unigwe belongs to the Igbo people and was born the sixth of seven children. After obtaining a bachelor's degree (1995) in English from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka , Unigwe followed her husband to Turnhout in Belgium. She received her Masters degree from the Catholic University of Leuven . In 2004 Unigwe received his doctorate in literature from the University of Leiden . After receiving a Unesco Aschberg scholarship in 2007, she received a number of other scholarships that took her to Italy, Denmark and Scotland, among others.
Unigwe has lived with her family in the United States since 2013. In 2014 she was Writer-in-Residence at Haverford College near Philadelphia. In May 2016 Unigwe received a professorship at the renowned Brown University in Providence , Rhode Island. She teaches creative writing there.
Unigwe is married to Jan Vandenhoudt and has four sons.
plant
Unigwe writes in Dutch and in English. Her first short stories were published in Nigeria in the 1990s. Others received international awards between 2003 and 2005. Her first novel De Feniks was also awarded a prize by Vrouw en Kultuur for best debut in 2005 and was nominated for the Gerard Walschap Prize in 2007.
Unigwe achieved international fame when her second novel, Fata Morgana, was published in English in 2009. In 2012, On Black Sister's Street (German Black Sisters ) won the Nigeria Literature Prize endowed with 100,000 US dollars . Her third novel Night Dancer was shortlisted for the Nigeria Literature Prize in 2016 . In the meantime, Black Messiah (2014) was published, depicting the life of Olaudah Equiano in literary fiction .
She did the Tübingen poetics lectureship with the British author Priya Basil in 2014, and Taiye Selasi and Nii Ayikwei Parkes were invited to Tübingen as guests . In the same year the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Hay-on-Wye included it in the Africa39 selection, which includes 39 promising African authors under 40 years of age. In 2017 Unigwe was on the jury of the “Man Booker International Prize” .
2019 Unigwe was included in the anthology New Daughters of Africa by Margaret Busby added.
Her novels have been translated into several languages, including German and Italian.
Works (selection)
- Novels
- De Feniks (Dutch). Amsterdam and Antwerp 2005.
- The Phoenix . Farafina, Lagos 2007. ISBN 978-978-48013-6-2 .
- Fata Morgana (Dutch). 2007. Translation:
- On Black Sisters' Street . London 2009. ISBN 978-0-224-08530-4 .
- Night dancer . London 2012. ISBN 978-0-224-09383-5 .
- Black Messiah . 2014.
- Short stories
- Tear drops . Enugu 1993.
- Born in Nigeria . Enugu 1995.
- Dreams . 2004.
- Thinking of Angel . 2005.
- Borrowed smile . 2003.
- Weathered Smiles . 2003.
- De Smaak van Sneeuw (Dutch). 2003.
- Anecdotes from rond de tafel te vertellen (Dutch). In: Vamba Sherif, Ebissé Rouw (Ed.): Zwart . Atlas Contact, Amsterdam 2018. ISBN 978-90-254-5154-7 .
- Children's and young people's literature
- A rainbow for dinner . Macmillan, Oxford 2002. ISBN 978-0-333-95588-8 .
- Publications in German
- Black sisters . Translated from the Dutch by Ira Wilhelm . Tropen, Stuttgart 2010. ISBN 978-3-608-50109-4 .
- With Priya Basil : Realities told . Tuebingen Poetics Lecturer 2014. Swiridoff, Künzelsau 2015. ISBN 978-3-89929-319-7 .
- Writings and essays
- In the Shadow of Ala. Igbo women's writing as an act of righting . Dissertation, Leiden 2004.
- A contribution. In: Christa Morgenrath, Eva Wernecke (Ed.): Imagine Africa 2060. Stories about the future of a continent . Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 2019. ISBN 978-3-7795-0604-1 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Chika Unigwe in the catalog of the German National Library
- Web presence of the author
- The Afro-Dutch Writer: 20 on Chika Unigwe .
- 5 questions for Chika Unigwe . (December 2016)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Zukiswa Wanner : Zukiswa Wanner's top five African writers. In: The Guardian . September 6, 2012, accessed October 10, 2019 .
- ↑ Chika Unigwe Heads to Brown University as Bonderman Professor of Creative Writing . (May 4, 2016, English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Unigwe, Chika |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Unigwe, Chika Nina |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Nigerian-Belgian writer and literary scholar |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1974 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Enugu , Nigeria |