Emmanuel Chima Ugokwe

Emmanuel Chima Ugokwe (born 1986) is a Nigerian novelist, poet, essayist, and actor.
Early life and education
Emmanuel Chima Ugokwe was born in 1986 to the family of Phinihas Ugokwe. He is from Uzii, in Ideato North Local Government Area of Imo state. He was the eighth of nine children in a middle-class family. His father was a retired classroom teacher in a local school and his mother also teaches in a local primary school. His family is devoted to Jehovah's Witness religion.
From a local community school in his village in Uzii, Ugokwe went to Iheme Memorial Grammar School Arondizuogu for his junior high school and Osina Secondary school for his senior high school. He also did some university studies, trained in film production, journalism, digital journalism and Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
Career
After his studies, Ugokwe taught briefly in schools, majoring in Basic Writing Skills and ICT. He produced two films and acted in one for Zahara Foundation on Violence against women. He is also involved in Igbo language and culture promotion and worked for Igbo ga-adi foundation, Rotary Club and other organisations to promote Igbo language.
In 2006, Ugokwe wrote his first book, Drama, the silence within while in the UK in 2006. In 2008, Ugokwe wrote his second book, Iwe Nwanne Anaghi Eru n'Okpukpu, an African-based story of two brothers who lived in different paths as enemies. The work won ANA/Nnamdi Azikiwe prize for literature in indigenous language that same year and was later published by Goldline and Jacobs in the US.

In 2008, Ugokwe founded Popular Age Youth Foundation(PAYF), an NGO that sensitizes youths and children on education and empowers them to develop their talents.

Ugokwe has worked with the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange Organisation since its inception in 2010 to sensitize Nigeria children on the need to see art and culture as instrument of change. In 2010, he was awarded a fellow of Ebedi, a six-week writing program in the small city of Iseyin, in Oyo state, with writer Igoni Barrett. He received the Princess Hastrup Prize for best Research Work and was a real Star in the best 50 Young Nigeria Stars essay writers in Nigeria. He was awarded Great Young Achievers by Commonwealth in celebration of Nigeria 50 years as independent nation.
Ugokwe was recognized as a distinguished writer by former Governor of Anambra State Peter Obi. He has won the Best Writer Award by Rotary Club India twice in 2013 and 2015.
His latest novel is Drumbeats of the Gods, published in the US..
Publications
* Iwe Nwanne Anaghi Eru n’Okpukpu - 2010 (Winner of the Ana/ Ken Nnamani Prize for Igbo Literature, 2008)
* The Silence Within - published 2010
* Voices of Love Letters from Africa
* Folded into Silence (2008) 5. Poem for Goodluck Jonathan(Anthology)
* Song of Sorrow
* 2012 Pendle War Anthology
* Short Story is Dead Anthology
* Nigeria and ICT Experience Anthology
* African Research Short story Anthology
* Winter 2014 issue of Hektoen International Medical Journal
* Winter 2015 issue of Hektoen International Medical Journal
* Opendoor Series Collected Essays for Wole Soyinka
* Drumbeat of the Gods 2016
* 2013 Pendle War Anthology
* Black Communion Anthology of African Poems
* 2014 Footmarks: Poems on One Hundred Years of Nigeria’s Nationhood
* Rotary Peace Essay Collections 2013
* Rotary Peace Essay Collections 2015

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