Ifeoma Okoye

Ifeoma Okoye earned her teaching certificate in 1959 and later opened a nursery school. When she saw how few books addressed the experiences of young people, she began writing children’s literature, publishing four novels between 1980 and 1981. In 1982 she published her first novel for adults, Behind the Clouds, which won a prize from the Nigerian National Council for Arts and Culture the following year. “Even though every novel ends with a full stop, the story it tells often continues,” she said in 2018. “The story shows a greater, more insidious authority and capacity.”