Obari Gomba

Obari Gomba (PhD), an Honorary Fellow in Writing of the University of Iowa (USA) and the Associate Dean of Humanities at the University of Port Harcourt, has been the TORCH Global South Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford (UK). He is a recipient of Rivers ANA Distinguished Writer Award, Kangaroo Poetry Festival Poet of 2018, and a two-time winner of both the Best Literary Artiste Award and the First Prize for Drama of the English Association of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

His works include The Lilt of the Rebel (Winner of PAWA Prize for African Poetry 2022), Guerrilla Post (Winner of ANA Drama Prize 2018/Listed for the Nigeria Prize for Literature 2018), For Every Homeland (Winner of ANA Poetry Prize 2017/Listed for the Nigeria Prize for Literature 2017), Thunder Protocol (Winner of ANA Poetry Prize 2016), Length of Eyes (Shortlisted for ANA Poetry Prize in 2013 /Listed for the Nigeria Prize for Literature 2013), and Pearls of the Mangrove (adopted as a ‘Book of the Festival’ for the 2011 Garden City Literary Festival and the 2019 Festival Poetry Calabar).

He curated an anthology featuring 35 writers from 33 countries, entitled A Piece of Daily Life, for the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa (USA) in 2016.

His poetry has been featured in Re-Markings: A World Assembly of Poets and The Second Genesis: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry. His poetry has been published in international journals such as Prosopisia, Sentinel, Maple Tree Literary Supplement and Eleven Eleven (which listed his ‘Gun Policy’ in the 20 Best of the Net for 2016). He has read his poems in the United States at Shambaugh House (University of Iowa), Dubuque Museum of Arts, Oaknell Retirement Centre, and Kirkwood.