IRENOSEN OKOJIE is a Nigerian British writer. Her debut novel Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask award and was shortlisted for an Edinburgh International First Book Award. Her short story collection Speak Gigantular, published by Jacaranda Books, was shortlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Her short story collection, Nudibranch, and her latest novel, Curandera, were published by Little Brown’s Dialogue Books imprint.
Her short stories have been published internationally, including Salt’s Best British Short Stories 2017, Kwani? and The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. In 2020, she won the prestigious AKO Caine Prize for her story ‘Grace Jones’. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Observer, the Guardian, the BBC and the Huffington Post, amongst others.
Irenosen has run workshops for the Southbank Centre, the British Council, the RSC and various festivals and universities. She was inducted as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature as one of the Forty Under Forty initiative. She was presented at the London Short Story Festival by Booker Prize-winning author Ben Okri as a dynamic writing talent to watch and featured in the Evening Standard Magazine as one of London’s exciting new authors. She has judged numerous literary awards, including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the BBC National Short Story Award and Dublin Literary Award.
She was awarded an MBE for Services to Literature in the 2021 Birthday Honours.
- Areas of expertise: literary & speculative fiction, short stories
- Location: London
- Possible meeting place: Wellcome Collection Cafe
Irenosen’s website; Irenosen is also on Twitter
