Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

OccupationsYears active2009–presentNotable workThe Teenager Who Became My Mother (2020)Parent

Chinụa Ezenwa-Ọhaeto is a Nigerian poet and academic.

Early life and education

Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto was born in Awka, Anambra State, where his father Ezenwa-Ohaeto taught at Nnamdi Azikiwe University.^[1] He grew up between Germany and Nigeria due to his father's profession.^[1] He was named after Chinua Achebe,^[1] who was his father's mentor.^[2] While growing up, Ezenwa-Ohaeto envisioned becoming an inventor but changed his mind when he started reading his father's poems.^[1] He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in English Language and Literature at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University.^[1][3] He is currently a PhD student for Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.^[3]

Career

In 2009, Chinua won the ANA/Mazariyya Teen Poetry Prize as a freshman at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.^[1] He was a runner-up in 2014 for the Etisalat Prize for Literature, flash fiction category.^[3] In 2017, he published a chapbook, The Teenager Who Became My Mother, via Sevhage Publishers.^[4] In 2018, he won the Castello di Duino Poesia Prize for an unpublished poem and was the recipient of the New Hampshire Institute of Art's 2018 Writing Award,^[5] as well as the recipient of a scholarship to the institute's MFA program,^[3][1] though he could not attend due to financial constraints.^[1] In 2019, he was the winner of the Sevhage/Angus Poetry Prize and second runner-up in the fifth Singapore Poetry Contest.^[3]

Bibliography

Chapbooks

• The Teenager Who Became My Mother

References