Stephen Buoro

Stephen Buoro (born 1993) is a Nigerian writer known for his distinctive voice and narrative style in contemporary African literature. He gained recognition with his debut novel, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa, published in 2023 by Bloomsbury.

Personal life Buoro comes from a strong Catholic background, and describes the Bible as "the book that's defined my life." He is the fourth of six children. The family later returned to the north, settling in Kontagora, the setting of his first novel. Despite his parents not being educated beyond primary school level, he credits the "wonderful conversations" he had with his "incredibly witty and funny" mother for his interest in writing: "She made me recognize the beauty, power, transfiguration, and transcendence that words attain in certain permutations." At eleven, he began writing as a way of expressing his feelings after the death of his father.

In 2018, Buoro received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship Buoro cites influences such as Chinua Achebe, Anthony Burgess, Junot Díaz, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and J. D. Salinger.

Buoro holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from the same institution.

The Independent found the novel predictable in places, but added that "this can be forgiven as Buoro [...] brings Andy's world to life with such immediacy." Interview Magazine called it "a bold demonstration of the Booker Scholar's cheeky and highly personal narrative voice." The judges described it as "extraordinary, driven by a gloriously eccentric central character" and "utterly compelling, not shy about posing difficult questions for the reader." However, they cautioned potential readers, stating, "don't expect it to provide any neat answers." The novel was also shortlisted for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and Authors' Club Best First Novel Award.