Nduka Otiono

Nduka Anthony Otiono is a Nigerian-Canadian professor, writer, poet, and a journalist. He is the Director, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada and his multidisciplinary research addresses how street stories —popular urban narratives in postcolonial Africa—travel through many cultural formations, such as oral tradition, the press, movies, popular songs, and social networks.

Early life Nduka Anthony Otiono hails from Ogwashi-Ukwu in Delta State, south-southern Nigeria but was born in Kano (the capital city of Kano State, northern Nigeria). He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Alberta in Canada (2011) in addition to a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English and an MA in English from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1987 and 1990 respectively.

Early career Otiono was a journalist at the early part of his career. He worked in print media, with a focus on literary and cultural journalism, and earned expertise at the editing and management levels. The Night Hides with a Knife (short stories), which won the ANA/Spectrum Prize, Voices in the Rainbow (poems), which was a finalist for the ANA/Cadbury Poetry Prize, and Love in a Time of Nightmares (poems), for which he received the James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing, are just a few of the works he has published. He made the transition to academia in 2004 and started working as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Ibadan's Department of English. In the same year, he was awarded Andrew Stewart Memorial Graduate Prize for Research by the same institution. In 2009, he won Sarah Nettie Christie Research Award, William Rea Scholarship, Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship, Gordin Kaplan Graduate Student Award. In 2010, he won James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing, in 2011, he was nominee for the Governor General's gold medal. In 2022, he made it to the final list of Archibald Lampman Prize for poetry for his anthology DisPlace

Publications

The Night Hides with a Knife 1995 (Short Stories). Voices in the Rainbow (Poems) 1997 We-men: An Anthology of Men Writing on Women (1998) Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writing from Nigeria (2006). Love in a Time of Nightmares. (Poems) 2008. Polyvocal Bob Dylan: Music, Performance, Literature. Wreaths for a Wayfarer: An Anthology in Honour of Pius Adesanmi. Oral Literary Performance in Africa: Beyond Text. DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono. (2021).