Onyeka Nwelue grew up in Ezeoke, a historic village in east Nigeria. After graduating from the seminary, where he had spent six years, he travelled extensively around Asia, particularly to India, studying the religions and cultures of the subcontinent, which inspired his first novel, The Abyssinian Boy. The book became a National Bestseller in Nigeria and it won the 2009 TM Aluko Prize for First Book and was runner-up at the Ibrahim Tahir Prize for Fiction at the 2009 Abuja Literary Festival. Nwelue has written numerous essays, poems and short stories which have appeared in the Guardian, The Sun, Wild Goose Poetry, Kafla InterContinental and he contributes reviews to Farafina magazine and other online and print publications. Onyeka Nwelue is also a trained scriptwriter, song-writer and self-proclaimed atheist. He divides his time between India and Nigeria.

Nwelue picture with Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka