Tanure Ojaide was educated at the University of Ibadan and Syracuse University. He has published collections of poetry, as well as novels, short stories, memoirs, and scholarly work. His awards include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for the Africa Region, the All-Africa Okigbo Prize for Poetry, and the BBC Arts and Africa Poetry Award. In 2016 he won both the African Literature Association’s Fonlon-Nichols Award for Excellence in Writing and the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award for the Humanities.