Lesley Nneka Arimah


Lesley Nneka Arimah is a Nigerian writer, and winner of the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa, the 2017 O. Henry Prize, the 2017 Kirkus Prize, and the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing. She has been described as "a skillful storyteller who can render entire relationships with just a few lines of dialogue" and "a new voice with certain staying power."

Biography

Arimah was born on October 13, 1983 in London. She grew up in both Nigeria and the U.K., and moved to the U.S. in her early teens. She received her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Minnesota State University Mankato in 2010.
In 2015, her story "Light" won the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for Africa. In 2016, 2017, and 2019, she was shortlisted for the Caine Prize. She won the 2019 edition with her story "".
Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Harper's, Per Contra, and other publications.
In September 2017, she was named as one of the fiction writers honored by the National Book Foundation, called "Five Under 35"

Debut book

In April 2017, her debut collection of short stories was published by Riverhead Books and Tinder Press. It is titled What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky. It was republished in Nigeria, by Farafina Books, in November 2017. It won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, the Minnesota Book Award for Fiction and the . In January 2018, it was shortlisted for the 9mobile Prize for Literature.
The book centres "on female protagonists exposed to a cruel world that pushes them to take certain steps to fit in, or make them realize, they just might not fit in," offering "a humanizing portrait of both the Nigerian citizen and first generation young female immigrant", showcasing "their flaws, their desires, their victories, and their attempts at carving out a place in a country whose customs and values diverge from that of their heritage.
The collection "explores women’s dispossession from many angles, including the fraught relationships between mothers and daughters and the complicated dynamics of female friendship." Her writing, The Atlantic says, "conveys respect for the people who claw their way through relentlessly difficult lives." NPR calls it "It's a truly wonderful debut by a young author who seems certain to have a very bright literary future ahead of her."

Personal life

She currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.