About Okey Ndibe

Okey Ndibe teaches fiction and African literature at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. He is the author of the novel, Arrows of Rain, which has drawn praise from numerous critics and authors, including Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, John Edgar Wideman, Michael Thelwell, and Niyi Osundare. U.K-based New Internationalist magazine described Arrows of Rain as “a powerful and gritty debut.” The magazine also spotlighted Arrows in its October 2001 special edition on “New Fiction from the South.” Ndibe also co-edited (with Chenjerai Hove) a book titled Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa.

Ndibe’s lively, witty and intellectually stimulating style has made him a highly sought after speaker on African and African American literature and politics.

After studying business management at the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu (Nigeria), Ndibe earned an MFA and PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

He has taught at Connecticut College in New London, CT (where the student newspaper named him one of the college’s five outstanding professors), and Simon's Rock College of Bard in Great Barrington, MA, winning the college's New Faculty Award. During the 2001-2002 year, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Ndibe was the founding editor of African Commentary, a magazine published in the U.S. by novelist Chinua Achebe, author of the classic novel, Things Fall Apart.

From 2000 to 2001, he served on the editorial board of Hartford Courant where his piece titled “Eyes to the Ground: The Perils of the Black Student,” won the 2001 Association of Opinion Page Editors award for best opinion essay in an American newspaper. He also won a best opinion piece award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut Chapter.

Ndibe writes a weekly column for The Sun of Nigeria, and his opinion essays are carried by numerous websites. He contributes to several publications in the U.S., England, and elsewhere, including Hartford Courant, The Fabian Society Journal, Black Issues Book Review, BBC Online, www.guernicamag.com and www.drunkenboat.com.

Ndibe is finishing his second novel titled foreign gods, incorporated and also working on a memoir of his life in the US.

To discuss a speaking engagement, please contact Ndibe by e-mail (okey@okeyndibe.com) or phone (860.306.7843).