Onyeka Nwelue

Onyeka Nwelue
Born	Onyekachukwu George Nwelue 31 January 1988 (1988-01-31) Ezeoke Nsu, Imo State, Nigeria
Nationality	Nigerian
Period	2000-present
Notable work(s)	The Abyssinian Boy
Notable award(s)	The Future Awards, 2009 TM ALUKO Prize for Fiction, 2009 TAHIR IBRAHIM Prize for First Book, 2000 THOMSON Short Story Prize

Onyeka Nwelue (born January 31, 1988) is a Nigerian writer and filmmaker.

Biography

Onyeka Nwelue (born 31 January 1988) is a Nigerian writer and filmmaker, who splits his time between India and Nigeria. Born in Ezeoke Nsu, Imo State, Nwelue travelled to India at the age of 18 to pursue a career in writing, living in the house of writer, Abha Iyengar, before he became famous and made friends with writers and artistes of his generation, including Jyoti Guptara, one of the Guptara Twins, who was introduced to him by young Indian scientist, innovator and inventor of Glabenator, Apurv Mishra. He had lived in his village and attended Umunohu Primary School until he gained admission into Mount Olives Seminary,Umuezeala Nsu, where he was noted as being 'distinct' and 'different.' His first novel, The Abyssinian Boy was written within the three months of his six month-stay in India, where he had gone to write, under the invitation of the India InterContinental Cultural Association (IICCA).

The son of a politician-father, Chief Sam Nwelue, also a Knight of St. Christopher and school-teacher mother, Mrs Kate Nwelue, also an Anglican Lay Reader and cousin to notable Nigerian writers Flora Nwapa and Chukwuemeka Ike. He spent 6 years in the seminary. In March 2006, he travelled to India, where he practiced Hinduism before turning to atheism. He writes mainly on religion and sexuality.

He lives in Lagos where he works as the editor of FilmAfrique.

Education & Teaching

In 2007, he was admitted into the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he studied Sociology & Anthropology briefly before dropping out to pursue a diploma in Scriptwriting at Asian Academy of Film & TV, Noida.

After his graduation, he lectured at NSS College, Ottapalam in Kerala, southern India. Nwelue has spoken to students at City University, Hong Kong, Caritas University, Enugu, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, University of Nigeria, Enugu campus, Kaduna State University, Kaduna and teaches in the 'Nigerian Fiction' Class at the English Language Department, University of Lagos, as a Guest Lecturer. He has also taught Film Adaptation at Centre for Research in Art of Film & TV, Delhi, where he worked as a Writer-in-Residence.

Career

Literary career

Nwelue started writing at the age of eleven, as soon as he got admitted into the seminary. He wrote The Talkative Monkey and the Rabbit, which appears in a chapter of The Abyssinian Boy.

He won the THOMSON Short Story Prize in 2000. He rose to fame after his appearance at the Wole Soyinka Festival in 2004, after which he was described in the Guardian as ‘a teenager with a steaming pen'.

Nwelue, in his own words, was patient enough to finish from the seminary, after which he got an invitation from the India InterContinental Cultural Association (IICA) to attend the 2nd International Writers Festival - India, that took place in several Indian states in 2006. Thereafter, he stayed back in India to write, travelling to different parts of India and living with one of India's most celebrated authors, Abha Iyengar. His manuscript was ready in 2006 and was sent out to agents and publishers. He claimed to have received over 45 rejection slips, which kept him depressed for a long time.

DADA Books publisher, Ayodele Arigbabu called from Capetown ] and offered to publish the book. Many months later, a contract was signed and The Abyssinian Boy was published. He was rumoured to have been paid an advance of over N2.5 million for the book, which he has not made any effort to deny. His publishers, DADA Books, also didn't deny it.

Nwelue is a founding member of DRUMLINE, a select group of creative young people at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, who were focused on creating and organising events. They also published a newspaper, DRUMLINE, which folded up after unsuccessful calls for sponsors. Few months after DRUMLINE folded up, Nwelue officially withdrew from the university to become the Founder/Chief Executive Officer of BLUES & HILLS Consultancy, an arts agency that champions the promotion of arts.

Danish filmmaker and visual artist, Lasse Lau bought the rights to film The Abyssinian Boy, three months after the release of the book.

Lasse Lau and Nwelue met during an arts exhibition, titled, Maps: The World is Flat, organised by Kowry Kreations in collaboration with Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), owned by veteran visual arts promoter, Bisi Silva.

He has been published in The Guardian, Times of India, NEXT, Punch, Daily Times, The Sun, Vanguard, ThisDay, Ecletica Magazine, Kafla InterContinental, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, Insurance & Money Weekly and several other publications.

He is the editor of ''FilmAfrique'', the exciting new film magazine, published by Africa Film Academy, curators of the African Movie Academy Awards.

The Abyssinian Boy

The Abyssinian Boy is about a South Indian Tamil Brahmin essayist and his East Nigerian Christian wife and the hallucination their nine year-old child faces. The book, published in 2009, has received considerable critical acclaim from media sources like The Guardian, NEXT and notable Nigerian writers, like Jude Dibia, Chika Unigwe and Nnorom Azuonye.

Shobhaa De has described The Abyssinian Boy as 'promising' and had written on her blog that it was the novel she had travelled to Poland with, to keep herself busy. Amit Chaudhuri has praised the author as a 'very talented young author.' And Hong Kong-based Sri Lankan writer, Nury Vittachi has described him as 'African literary wonder-kid'.

The Abyssinian Boy was published in India in 2011 by Serene Woods. It won the TM ALUKO Prize for First Book and came second at the IBRAHIM TAHIR Prize for Fiction, all in 2009, organised by Abuja Writers' Forum (AWF).

Nwelue is signed to Pontas Literary & Film Agency based in Barcelona, Spain.

The Orchard of Memories

The Orchard of Memories is the title for his second novel, which has been completed. It is the story of a Chinese man living in Lagos and a Mexican musician.

He travelled to Hong Kong and walked the streets to get a feel for the book.

The Orchard of Memories will be represented by Pontas Literary & Film Agency.

It is set in Lagos, Hong Kong, Mexico City and Doha International airport.

Filmmaking career

After training at the Asian Academy of Film & TV, Nwelue travelled to Oguta in Imo State, the birthplace of his mother, to film a story in 2011 based on the anthropological finds of German anthropologist, Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, who had spent over 26 years in Oguta, writing about Ogbuide, the river goddess. The film was called, The Distant Light and there was a media buzz about it. It has not been released yet.

His documentary on sex workers, A Night with the Angels, has been hailed as a daring work. It chronicles the story of three colleagues who go out in the night to hang out with prostitutes.

He has done few cameo appearances in movies, including one in multiple-awards winning director, Kunle Afoyalan's recent film, Phone Swap.

He has also interviewed some of the heavyweights of the cinema world.

Controversies

Nwelue has been the subject of various controversies owing to his outspoken nature. He legally dropped the name, George in 2008 because of his atheist beliefs and for the fact that "I didn't understand the name George".

In 2009, in a newspaper interview, he claimed that "Soyinka writes bad dialogue" even though he still acknowledges the Nobel laureate as one of his mentors till today. In February 2011, at a lecture he delivered at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, India, he dropped a bombshell when he declared Things Fall Apart, written by the legendary Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe as "the worst book ever written by an African." He also went ahead to describe fellow Nigerian writer, the equally famous Chimamanda Adichie as "a nuisance to African literature", saying that she was only seeking relevance by connecting herself with Achebe. He posited that both Things Fall Apart and Half of A Yellow Sun should be banned in Indian universities and colleges since they presented poor, one-dimensional images of Africa and implored more non-Africans to read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The video of the speech is on social network, YouTube. In the video, he also added that Adichie's first book, Purple Hibiscus was one of the best books he'd ever read in his life.

An open letter written to the Abuja Writers' Forum in 2010 caused much controversy in Nigeria and was published in major national dailies and several online media. In it, he accused the leadership of the writers' body of not having paid his prize money for the two prizes they awarded him late in 2009. Till date, the money has not been paid.

Another open letter to the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan comparing him to Zimbabwean ruler, Robert Mugabe was published later that year after Nwelue had met Mugabe's daughters who were schooling in Hong Kong on one of his trips. It caused so much buzz and sections of the public criticized the president for the poor Nigerian educational sector.

Later on in 2010, he released the very controversial list of the Most Influential Nigerians Under 20. The list which was published in most online and print media in Nigeria and the neighbouring Ghana was received with mixed reactions from various quarters. The list included singers Jon Ogah, Whizkid, Mo'cheddah, writers Chibundu Onuzo and Chizitere Ojiaka, writer and motivational speaker, Mervis Emelife and celebrity gossip journalists, Sheifunmi and Noble Ezeala. Entrepreneur and essayist, Aboyeji Iynoluwa and writer, journalist and self-styled mediapreneur, Eromo Egbejule were also on the list.

After the release of the award-winning film, Mirror Boy, written and directed by Obi Emelonye, the Nigerian filmmaker came under scrutiny for what some bloggers called a 'poor imitation' of Nwelue's The Abyssinian Boy. In an interview with Ghanaian journalist and blogger, Ameyaw Debrah, Nwelue said: "“Obi Emelonye hasn’t denied that knowledge of my book, but rather he has denied reading it; which I think is very interesting. There are so many stories with children and dwarfs. There are many stories like that. But my fear is that Danish filmmaker, Lasse Lau has a script that he’s going to shoot and it is the same way the adaptation has taken shape. The fear is that when people see ‘The Abyssinian Boy’ film, they would totally assume it is a remake of ‘ The Mirror Boy’.”

Nwelue's publisher, DADA Books refused to sue.

Grants, Awards and Festivals Attended

Nwelue received a grant from the Institute for Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC), an organisation founded by former Nigeria's Mineral Resources Minister, Professor Leslye Obiora to 'empower young people'. In 2010, he was nominated as Creative Artist of the Year at the Future Awards'. He has been invited and participated at the 2nd International Writers’ Festival – India, Jaipur Literature Festival-India, Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival- Hong Kong, DSC South Asian Literary Festival – UK and Lagos Book and Art Festival – Nigeria.

In 2000, he won the THOMSON Short Story Prize. He won the TM ALUKO Prize for First Book and came second at the IBRAHIM TAHIR Prize for Fiction, all in 2009, organised by Abuja Writers' Forum (AWF). He was Visiting Fellow at Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR) in Cochin, Kerala and was a Visiting Lecturer at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.

BLUES & HILLS Consultancy

Nwelue is the Founder/Chief Executive Officer of BLUES & HILLS Consultancy, an arts agency which developed itself into a brand that champions the management, representation and appreciation of the arts. With the vision to be at the forefront of arts consultancy in Nigeria, B & H has recruited young writers, musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, photographers and designers and continues to represent them professionally, helping them curb the stress of image making and publicity surrounding their works.

His firm organised the first edition of Bayelsa Book & Craft Fair, at which he worked as the Director in 2011.

External links

• Onyeka Nwelue on Facebook
• Onyeka Nwelue on Twitter
• BLUES & HILLS
• FilmAfrique