Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Chinelo Okparanta received her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. A Colgate University Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Fiction as well as a recipient of the University of Iowa's Provost's Postgraduate Fellowship in Fiction, Okparanta was nominated for a US Artists Fellowship in 2012. She is a winner of a 2014 Lambda Literary Award, a 2016 Lambda Literary Award, the 2016 Jessie Redmon Fauset Book Award in Fiction, the 2016 Inaugural Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle, and a 2014 O. Henry Prize. Updated July 2017
Chinelo Okparanta
Author
Born in: Nigeria
More 2017 Great Immigrants
Viet Thanh NguyenPulitzer Prize-winning novelist
Ayman MohyeldinJournalist, NBC News
Liam NeesonActor
Suheir HammadPoet and Activist
Get the Carnegie Reporter and our best articles delivered to your inbox.