“

We would never learn their names, which would be whispered thereafter only by pockets of memory that floated in the wind; would never learn of their varied, torturous migrations, never realise that their remains lay scattered beneath our feet, that our homes had been constructed on their bones, their carcasses, nor that it was their rising, wandering spirits which roamed the ever-expanding forests of Ekpo. 

”

Mary Ononokpono, Ayanti (Will You Remember Me?)

Migrations: New Short Fiction From Africa, New Internationalist Books 2017

ABOUT

B.

CALABAR, NIGERIA

MARY ONONOKPONO is a Nigerian-British writer. She is the recipient of the 2018 Florence Staniforth Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing, the winner of the 2017 Black Letter Media Short Story Prize, and the Winner of the 2014 Golden Baobab Prize for Early Chapter Books. Mary has been thrice shortlisted for the Morland Writing Scholarship. Her writing has been published in various anthologies and magazines.

Mary’s work centres African perspectives, taking inspiration from the cultural legacies of the African continent. She creates narratives which reimagine the African past as a basis for examining present and future. Her work is heavily influenced by the rich ontological and cosmological landscapes of her ancestral home in the South-Eastern corner of Nigeria. Linguistically, Mary seeks to bring her ancestral languages —Ibibio, Okobo and Efik (amongst others)— and the histories encoded therein, to the attention of a wider audience. 

Mary is an AHRC funded Doctoral Scholar at the University of Cambridge Faculty of History. As an historian of the Atlantic world, her research concerns gendered socio-economic and cultural transformations across the Biafran littoral in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She holds an MPhil in African Studies from the University of Cambridge where she graduated with distinction. At present, Mary is completing a novel and collection of short stories.

Notable Prizes/ Nominations

2019

LUCY CAVENDISH STUDENT FICTION PRIZE

second runner up

2018

MORLAND WRITING SCHOLARSHIP

SHORTLISTED

FLORENCE STANIFORTH PRIZE FOR EXCELLENCE IN CREATIVE WRITING

RECIPIENT

2017

BLACK LETTER MEDIA SHORT STORY PRIZE

WINNER

2016

MORLAND WRITING SCHOLARSHIP

SHORTLISTED

SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA PRIZE

LONGLISTED 

FARAFINA WRITING WORKSHOP with CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

SHORTLISTED

2015

MORLAND WRITING SCHOLARSHIP

SHORTLISTED

SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA PRIZE

LONGLISTED

2014

GOLDEN BAOBAB PRIZE FOR EARLY CHAPTER BOOKS

WINNER

SHORT STORY DAY AFRICA PRIZE

LONGLISTED

COMMONWORD DIVERSITY FOR CHILDREN PRIZE

LONGLISTED

ARTIST STATEMENT 

DECEMBER 2012 - PRESENT

SPIRIT WORK IS DEAD RAISING WORK

SPIRIT WORK IS DEAD RAISING WORK is a body of work that springs from an initiatory trip to Nigeria in December 2012. The work takes the form of a collection of short stories; a soul retrieval in novel format; and a series of oratorical pieces which navigate ritual spatial thresholds. The aim is to give voice to a hierarchy of spirit interlocutors. Work is ongoing. Select stories from the short story collection can be purchased here, here and here.