Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a Ghanaian writer, senior editor at flipped eye publishing, a socio-cultural commentator and a performance poet. In 2007 he received Ghana's national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy. Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a former International Writing Fellow at the University of Southampton and writer-in-residence at California State University, Los Angeles and holds an MA in creative writing from Birkbeck (University of London).

In 2009, his short story, Socks Ball, was highly commended in the Caine Prize for African Writing. His novel Tail of the Blue Bird was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize and his work has been translated into Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch, German and Arabic. His books of poetry include the Michael Marks Award-shortlisted pamphlet, ballast: a remix (2009) and The Makings of You. Nii served on the board of the 2017 Caine Prize Award as the Chair of Judges. He writes for children under the name K. P. Kojo and spends most of his time in Ghana and the United Kingdom with regular visits to the United States for readings. His latest book is Tales from Africa.