Examples of Biography

These examples illustrate different types of biography. If you are a writer and your work deal with Africa or African Disapora, or from the region, register to submit your work to AfricaResource editors for review.

Personal Biography

Omololá Ijeoma Ògúnyemí is a medical informatics researcher based in Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up in Nigeria, she was captivated by the works of Nwapa, Emecheta, Ba, Ekwensi, Austen, Ulasi, El Sadaawi, Thorpe and other authors of the then ubiquitous Pacesetters series targetted at young Nigerians. She draws her inspiration from the experiences of Nigerians and other Africans in the diaspora, and has run a mailing list for Nigerian and African women's issues since 1994. Her work has appeared in Odidere Orunmila Gazette and the South Boston Literary Gazette.

Traditional Biography

Kwame Senu Neville Dawes was born in Ghana in 1962 but grew up in Jamaica where he attended Jamaica College and the University of the west Indies at Mona. He studied and taught in New Brunswick on a Commonwealth Scholarship to Canada. Since 1992 he has been teaching at the University of South Carolina. He is as an Associate Professor in English on the Columbia campus of that institution. He is also a critic, actor, playwright, storyteller, and a poet-reggae singer. Dawes has published six collections of poetry, Progeny of Air (Peepal Tree 1994--Winner of the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection, UK) Resisting the Anomie (Goose Lane 1995), Prophets (Peepal Tree 1995). Jacko Jacobus, (Peepal Tree 1996), Requiem, (Peepal Tree 1996) a suite of poems inspired by the illustrations of African American artist, Tom Feelings in his landmark book The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo, and Shook Foil (Peepal Tree 1998) a collection of Reggae-inspired poems.

Chronological Biography

Tony was born on the 7th of August 1969 in South London. This upcoming poet, playwright and novelist started creative writing at the age of nine, a habit he expressed with keen enthusiasm. Tony attended the Federal Government College in Azare, Northern Nigeria, and later went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree in English language and Literature at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Much later he went on to complete a programme in Teaching English as a foreign Language at the Frances King International Training Institute in South Kensington. His writing later then began to become a fusion of Poetry, Graphics, Sounds, Spectacles, Animations and Music. Tony then went on to study Web design and Programming at the City University in the Heart of London UK. He is currently working on his next novel called The Secrets in the Wind. Tony is also online producer of Africa Awakening, an African Arts production. Tony's works are mostly inspired by a spiritual vision to acclaim and overcome the torment of a bedevilled concept.

Creative Biography

Ebele Jane Uche-Nwakile is an old soul who reincarnated in this lifetime as the granddaughter of the late Chief Peter Nwakile Nwanolude "Ichie Ezenwaka" of Eastern Nigeria. Born in the age of Disco, Afros and Bellbottoms, she grew up with the works of Achebe, Nwapa, Okigbo, Senghor, Brutus, Tagore, Shakespeare, Neruda, Yeats and Gibran. Her poems have been published in such books and magazines as The Rustling Leaves, A Celebration of Poets, Uhuru and Pigs 'n Poets. As she journeys through this life, eagerly anticipating the future and the publication of her collection of poems and short stories, she is a student at Kent State University, Ohio.