Olumide Popoola

Olumide Popoola is a Nigerian German writer and speaker. She won the 2004 May Ayim Award (in the category of Poetry), the first Black International Literature Award in Germany.

Olumide Popoola was born in Germany to a German mother and a Nigerian father. She moved to Nigeria as a child and spent five years there before returning to Germany.

Olumide holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing, an MA in Creative Writing, and a BSc in Ayurvedic Medicine.

Her first published work was novella This is Not About Sadness (2010). She has written a play, Also by Mail, which came out in 2013, and the short story collection Breach, which she co-authored with Annie Holmes in 2016.

Her first full-length novel, When We Speak of Nothing, was published in the UK and Nigeria in 2017 and later in the US. The book is about two young black boys in London whose friendship goes through a series of challenges, including sexual and homosexual identity, racism, bullying, and an unstable political climate.

Her publications also include critical essays, narrative essays, creative non-fiction, and hybrid pieces.

It has been announced that her novel, The Swimmer, will be released in 2023.

Popoola is currently an Associate Lecturer on the post-graduate course Writing for Change at Central Saint Martins.

Olumide Popoola lives in London.

Photo credit: www.olumidepopoola.com