Ekow Eshun was born in London, the younger brother of writer Kodwo Eshun. His family are Fante from Ghana. His father, whom he calls 'Joe', was a supporter of Kwame Nkrumah, and was working at the Ghanaian High Commission when Nkrumah was overthrown in a military-police coup in February 1966. He continued to support Nkrumah, visited him in Conakry, Guinea, where he was in exile, and in September 1967 took the risk of returning to West Africa, where he was arrested in Benin and returned to Ghana, where he spent two years in prison. Although three years of Eshun's childhood were spent in Accra, for the most part he was brought up in London, after his father returned to London to work again at the Ghana High Commission, a position he lost when the prevailing military regime was overthrown in a coup by Jerry Rawlings. He attended Kingsbury High School in North West London, later reading history and politics at the London School of Economics. During his time there he both Features and Arts for the student newspaperThe Beaver. He was the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London from 2005 to 2010 during a period of turmoil for the organisation, leaving before the end of his six-month notice period. He has sometimes appeared as a critic on Saturday Review on BBC Radio 4, and formerly on BBC Two's The Review Show. He appeared in 2009 in the television advertisements for Aviva. He has also often appeared on More4's topical talk showThe Last Word. In 2019, he was the captain of the London School of Economics team on Christmas University Challenge. Eshun's memoir, Black Gold of the Sun: searching for home in England and Africa, published in 2005, deals with a return trip to Ghana, Ghanaian history, and issues of identity and race. Reviewing the book for the New Statesman, Margaret Busby said: "His rich memoir, which comes fittingly adorned with a golden jacket designed by Chris Ofili, attempts to answer the question: 'Where are you from?' Eshun’s search for home and identity is sometimes achingly poignant, a story of semi-detachment, of fragmentation and duality, which must have been cathartic to write. 'There is no singularity to truth' is its refrain." Black Gold of the Sun was nominated for an Orwell Prize in 2006.
