Biography Intro: Adrian Igonibo Barrett (born 26 March 1979) is a Nigerian writer.

NAME: A. Igoni Barrett

DATE OF BIRTH:  26 March 1979

PLACE OF BIRTH:  Port Harcourt, Nigeria,

MOTHER:  Lindsay Barrett,

MARRIED TO: Femke van Zeijl.

OCCUPATION: Writer

EDUCATION: University of Ibadan.

CAREER AND PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

PUBLICATIONS: His first book, a collection of short stories entitled From Caves of Rotten Teeth, was published in 2005 and reissued in 2008. A story from the collection, “The Phoenix”, won the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition.

His second collection of stories, Love Is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013; according to the Boston Globe, the collection “pulses with an indomitable life force that is, by turns, tender and fierce”. Time Out New York commented: “These rich pieces are also brilliantly sequenced…. Shifts in mood happen throughout the book…. Unlikely moments of empathy occur again and again amid wrenching drama and subtle comedy; the resulting collection satisfies on numerous levels.” Love is Power, or Something Like That was chosen as a “best book of 2013” by NPR

ACHIEVEMENTS:

HONORS AND AWARDS: Igoni Barrett was a winner of the BBC World Service short story competition for 2005 with a story entitled “The Phoenix”, which was broadcast on 2 January 2006.

In 2010, he was awarded a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship. In 2011, he was awarded a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship[21] as well as a Bellagio Center Residency.

In April 2014 Barrett was named as one of 39 sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40  in the Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club Africa39 project celebrating Port Harcourt UNESCO World Book Capital 2014.[24]

In December 2016 he was named on a list of “100 Most Influential Nigerian Writers Under 40 (Year 2016)” published on the Nigerian Writers Awards website.