Uwem Akpan serves as Associate Professor of Creative Writing (Fiction) in the Department of English at the University of Florida, where he teaches graduate and upper-level fiction workshops within the Literature faculty. A Nigerian author raised in the village of Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria as the son of teachers, Akpan discovered his passion for fiction writing at age 29. He studied philosophy and humanities at Creighton University in Nebraska and Gonzaga University in Washington, completed theology studies at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Kenya, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 2006. Akpan joined the University of Florida in 2018 as Assistant Professor in the MFA Program and has since been promoted to Associate Professor. Prior to this, he held visiting writer positions at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center (2013-2014), the University of Nevada’s Black Mountain Institute (2010-2011), the University of Michigan’s Humanities Institute (2011-2012), and Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage. His earlier appointments include teaching writing at Arrupe College of Philosophy & Letters in Harare, Zimbabwe (2007-2008), English at Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja, Nigeria (2003-2004), and roles with street children in Tanzania and other educational positions in Nigeria and Benin.

Akpan’s debut collection Say You’re One of Them (Little, Brown, 2008) comprises five stories set across African nations, narrated from children’s viewpoints amid poverty, discrimination, and genocide; it became a #1 New York Times bestseller, Oprah Book Club selection in 2009, and winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Africa Region), PEN Open Book Award, and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, with translations into twelve languages. Featured among 2008’s best books by Entertainment Weekly (#1 Fiction), The Washington Post, NPR, and others, it ranked #27 on Entertainment Weekly’s Best of the Decade. His stories appeared in The New Yorker, including “An Ex-Mas Feast” (2005), “My Parents’ Bedroom” (2006), and “Baptizing the Gun” (2010), alongside autobiographical pieces like “Night Driving” (2022) and publications in O, The Oprah Magazine. Akpan’s novel New York, My Village (W.W. Norton, 2021) satirizes immigrant experiences, racism, and cultural clashes through a Nigerian editor’s Manhattan fellowship on the Biafran War. Additional honors include fellowships at Yaddo (2012) and as Teilhard de Chardin Fellow at Loyola University Chicago (2017).

Professional Email: uwem.akpan@ufl.edu