A. Igoni Barrett | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | March 26, 1979 Port Harcourt, Nigeria |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Nigeria |
| Genre | Short Stories |
| Notable awards | Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship |
Adrian Igonibo Barrett (born 26 March 1979) is a Nigerian writer.
A. Igoni Barrett | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | March 26, 1979 Port Harcourt, Nigeria |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Nigeria |
| Genre | Short Stories |
| Notable awards | Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship |
Adrian Igonibo Barrett (born 26 March 1979) is a Nigerian writer.
He was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to a Nigerian mother and the Jamaican novelist and poet Lindsay Barrett.[1]
Igoni Barrett was a winner of the BBC World Service short story competition for 2005 with a story entitled "The Phoenix", which was broadcast on 2 January 2006.[2][3] His first book, a collection of short stories entitled From Caves of Rotten Teeth, was first published in 2005 and reissued in 2008.
Invited as a participant to various literary festivals, Barrett was a guest reader on the opening night of the PEN World Voices Festival in 2013.[4] He was the founding organizer of the BookJam reading series[5] in Lagos, Nigeria, which featured the writers Jude Dibia, Michela Wrong, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Binyavanga Wainaina, Helon Habila and Tsitsi Dangarembga, among others.
Igoni Barrett was awarded a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship in 2010. In 2011, he was awarded a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship[6] as well as a Bellagio Center Residency.[7]
His second collection of stories Love Is Power, or Something Like That was published in 2013;[8] according to the Boston Globe, the collection "pulses with an indomitable life force that is, by turns, tender and fierce".[9] Time Out New York commented: "These rich pieces are also brilliantly sequenced.... Shifts in mood happen throughout the book.... Unlikely moments of empathy occur again and again amid wrenching drama and subtle comedy; the resulting collection satisfies on numerous levels."[10] Love is Power, or Something Like That was chosen as a "best book of 2013" by NPR[11] and Flavorwire.[12]
In April 2014 Igoni Barrett was named as one of 39 sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40[13] in the Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club Africa39 project celebrating Port Harcourt UNESCO World Book Capital 2014.[14]
