Ngozi Onyioha-Orji Unravels Fictional Knots - Abdullahi Abubakar,
The August 28 edition of the Guest Writer Session, a popular monthly literary event hosted by the Abuja Writers’ Forum (AWF) which showcases emerging and established writers, will feature Ngozi Onyioha-Orji who is gradually establishing a reputation for dealing with issues of child abuse through her novels. Mrs Onyioha-Orji who hails from Nkoporo in Ohafia LGA, Abia State, was educated in Nigeria and the United Sates of America (USA). She majored in English Literature for her first degree, and then did a Masters programme on Secondary School Education. On her return to Nigeria in 1980, she took up a teaching appointment at the Federal Training College, Enugu.

Two years later, she became an administrative secretary of the Senate Committee on Transport and Aviation. In 1986 she resigned from the Civil Service to nurture her writing career.

The Umuahia-based author has three novels to her credit. Her debut novel, Teenager At War was co-published with the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC). Described by The Guardian “as a heart-rending tale which portrays the sordidness of war and how it seizes people’s sanity”, the debut work set the tone for her preoccupation with the issue of child abuse. It is set against the backdrop of the Nigerian civil war.

Her second novel followed in 2001. Titled The Accused, The Condemned, The Reprieved it features a central character, Zeenri, through whom the author shows the dangers many a girl child faces.

Ngozi Onyioha-Orji’s most recent work, The Knots of Karma was published in 2009 and tells the story of six young women who meet at a funeral several years after their secondary education at a Federal Unity Secondary School. This unexpected rendezvous becomes a quest for coming to terms with who they have become.

The August Guest Writer Session holds by 4pm at the Pen and Pages Bookstore, White House Plaza, Plot 79, Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse 2, Abuja and will include the usual side attractions of poetry performance, mini art exhibition and live music.

Onyioha-Orji’s reading comes on the heels of the July edition which featured the US-based Helon Habila. The Guest Writer Session which started in June 2008 has run consistently since then and has become the inspiration for similar literary interventions in some of the nation’s major cities, a testimony of its success.

The August edition will be preceded by the monthly creative writing workshop which started a year ago and is currently focusing on poetry. The workshop starts by 11:30am at the International Institute of Journalism (IIJ), Hamdala Plaza, Plot 23, Jimmy Carter Street, off Protea Hotel, Asokoro