Noo Saro-Wiwa

Noo Saro-Wiwa
Born
Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria
NationalityBritish-Nigerian
CitizenshipBritish, Nigeria
Alma materColumbia University
OccupationWriter
Years active2012 - present
Known forTravel writing
Notable workTranswonderland: Travel in Nigeria
Relatives

Noo Saro-Wiwa is a British-Nigerian author, noted for her travel writing. She is the daughter of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Education

Noo Saro-Wiwa was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and grew up in Ewell, Surrey in England.[1] She attended Roedean School, King's College London and Columbia University, New York, and currently lives in London.[2]

Writing

Saro-Wiwa's first book was Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria (Granta Books, 2012).[3] It was nominated for the Dolman Best Travel Book Award,[4] and was named the Sunday Times Travel Book of the Year in 2012. It was selected as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in 2012, and was nominated by the Financial Times as one of the best travel books of 2012. The Guardian newspaper also included it among its 10 Best Contemporary Books on Africa in 2012. It has been translated into French and Italian. In 2016 it won the Albatros Travel Literature Prize in Italy.

In 2016, she contributed to the anthology An Unreliable Guide to London (Influx Press), as well as A Country of Refuge (Unbound), an anthology of writing on asylum seekers. Another of her stories also featured in La Felicità Degli Uomini Semplici (66th and 2nd), an Italian-language anthology based around football.

Her second book, Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China, was published by Canongate in 2023.

She has contributed book reviews, travel, analysis and opinion articles for The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement, City AM, La Repubblica, Prospect and The New York Times.

Condé Nast Traveller magazine named Saro-Wiwa as one of the "30 Most Influential Female Travellers" in 2018.[5]

She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.[6]

She narrated the BBC documentary Silence Would Be Treason,[7] broadcast 15 January 2022. The documentary includes letters sent by Ken Saro-Wiwa to the Irish nun, Sister Majella McCarron.

Personal life

Noo Saro-Wiwa is the daughter of the Nigerian poet and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, and her twin sister is video artist and filmmaker Zina Saro-Wiwa.

Bibliography

  • Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria (Granta Books, 2012).
  • Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China (Canongate, 2023)

Selected articles

See also

References

  1. ^ Jon Henley, "Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa's daughter remembers her father" Archived 13 February 2015 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, 31 December 2011.
  2. ^ "Noo Saro-Wiwa" at David Higham.
  3. ^ Noo Saro-Wiwa (5 January 2012). Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria. Granta Publications. ISBN 978-1-84708-552-8.
  4. ^ "2013 winner". authorsclub.co.uk. Archived from the original on 25 December 2014.
  5. ^ Michelle Jana Chan, "The World's Most Influential Women Travellers" Archived 10 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine, Condé Nast Traveller, 19 December 2018.
  6. ^ Olatoun Gabi-Williams, "After seminal anthology, Busby celebrates New Daughters of Africa" Archived 27 January 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Guardian Arts, The Guardian (Nigeria), 21 April 2019.
  7. ^ "Silence would be teason". The Documentary Podcast. 15 January 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  8. ^ Noo Saro-Wiwa, "Boko Haram: Why selfies won't 'bring back our girls'", Prospect, 20 May 2014.
  9. ^ Noo Saro-Wiwa, "Bombastic, monochrome and simplistic – and yet still I love Top Gun", The Guardian, 16 May 2016.