Uzodinma Iweala

Uzodinma Iweala (born November 5) is a Nigerian-American author and medical doctor. His debut novel, Beasts of No Nation, is a formation of his thesis work (in creative writing) at Harvard. It depicts a child soldier in an unnamed African country. The book, published in 2005 and adapted as an award-winning film in 2015, was mentioned by Time Magazine, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Times, and Rolling Stone. In 2012, he released the non-fiction book Our Kind of People, about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria. He later released a novel titled Speak No Evil, published in 2018, which highlights the life of a gay Nigerian-American boy named Niru. Iweala is currently the CEO of The Africa Center in Harlem, New York. Family and education Born and raised in the U.S. with American nationality, Iweala is the son of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. He attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and later Harvard College, from which he graduated with an A.B., magna cum laude, in English and American Literature and Language, in 2004. His roommate at Harvard was the future mayor of South Bend, Indiana and U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg. While at Harvard, Iweala earned the Hoopes Prize and Dorothy Hicks Lee Prize for Outstanding Undergraduate Thesis, 2004; Eager Prize for Best Undergraduate Short Story, 2003; and the Horman Prize for Excellence in Creative Writing, 2003. He graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2011 and was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Novels