Onyeka Nwelue

An Angel on the Piano was published on January 31st, 2020, by Griots Lounge. It's a collection of poems, written by Nwelue, while he was in prison in Rwanda.

His grandparents are Origbudu SBC Obiora and Ogbuefi Odiso Obiora (née Nwakuche and eldest sister to Mr. Gogo Nwakuche, Nwapa's second husband), who are “blue-blooded aristocrats” and related to the acclaimed writer, His Majesty, Eze Prof. Chukwuemeka Ike, OFR, NNOM, Ikelionwu XI, Eze of Ndikelionwu. His aunt, Professor Leslye Obiora, was Nigeria’s former Minister of Mines and Steel. He is nephew of Nigerian social activist and musician, Charly Boy and Swedish-Nigerian musician, Dr. Alban. He is also grand-nephew of Nigeria's first Professor of Anthropology, Professor Ikenna Nzimiro.

Nwelue left for Lagos when he was 16 years old to attend the Wole Soyinka Festival, after which he was introduced to the Nobel Laureate. A few years later, Nwelue traveled to India for the 2nd International Writers’ Festival, at the invitation of the India Cultural Association. Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka remains one of Nwelue’s fans. “He has read everything I have published,” Nwelue says. He has organized private screenings of his films for the Nobel Laureate and they frequently travel together.

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko are welcoming Spain’s King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, who are visiting Japan as state guests, at the Imperial Palace, with Crown Prince Naruhito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also attending a related event there. But there are two nameless people who are not happy with this visit - a Mexican musician, who hates the Spanish and a Japanese business man, who hates the Chinese. They meet at the Transit Lounge in Doha International Airport, waiting for their connecting flight to Tokyo and begin telling revealing stories, which take readers to Lille, Paris, New York, New Delhi, Lagos, Tel Aviv and down to Tokyo.

On December 24th, 2019, there was a protest in Abuja, against his book, A Country of Extraordinary Ghosts, with the protesters calling for the ban of the book.

He deleted his social media accounts in 2019, after being diagnosed of Bipolar Disorder and went into exile, to ‘focus on his writing and films.’

His second novel, The Beginning of Everything Colourful, was shortlisted for the ANA Prose Fiction Prize in 2018 and his collection of poetry, The Lagos Cuban Jazz Club, was shortlisted for ANA Poetry Prize in the same year. Wole Soyinka described his novel, A Country of Extraordinary Ghosts, as ‘suis generis.’ He had read it in one sitting on the plane from Dakar to Abidjan.

On 1st February 2018, a day after his 30th birthday, Onyeka was involved in a ghastly car accident, sustaining injuries to his lower back. He was confined to a wheelchair for two months, before using a walking aid.

He released a documentary detailing the life of Flora Nwapa, Africa's first female novelist in English. It was nominated in the Best Documentary category of the 2017 Africa Movie Academy Awards. It was screened at over 12 film festivals, including Lights, Camera, Africa! Film Festival, iRep Documentary Film Festival, Lagos International Poetry Festival, Lagos Book & Art Festival, Africa Film Trinidad & Tobago Festival, The Caribbean International Film Festival in LA, AfricaFest Film Festival and many others.

At the end of August, 2017, Nwelue announced through an article that he had wrapped shoot of his new film, "Island of Happiness", adapted from his yet to be released novella.

In 2017, Nwelue was brutalized by military men for trying to stop them from raping a sex worker. A year later, Nwelue was arrested at the lobby of Onomo Hotel in Kigali and jailed for 8 days, for allegedly ‘publicly insulting’ Rwandan President, Paul Kagame on Twitter and RwandAir. He was released after the intervention of former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo. Prior to his arrest, he was a Voluntary Lecturer at Kwetu Film Institute, founded by the filmmaker, Eric Kabera.

In August 2016, Nwelue's documentary film on Flora Nwapa, entitled The House of Nwapa, premiered in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Nwelue worked with musicians under La Cave Musik and travelled to different countries to meet different musicians and came up with this controversial book, which details personal encounters with musicians and music promoters. It was released in January 2015 to critical acclaim. It has reportedly sold a million copies.

By January 2015, he was promoted as Visiting Fellow cum assistant professor of African Literature at the University of Manipur in Imphal, north east India.

His second book is a narrative in verse and has been described by British-Hungarian poet George Szirtes as "breathless". Nwelue toured 25 countries of Europe in 2014, promoting the book, which has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Igbo and Yoruba. Translated by Venezuelan writer Alberto Quero, it was published in Peru, where it had its official launch at the Cusco Book Fair in 2015.

In 2014, he was appointed a Visiting Lecturer of African Studies at the School of Modern Language and Culture, the University of Hong Kong, and later an assistant professor of African Studies at Instituto d'Amicis in Puebla, Mexico.

He is best known for his novel The Abyssinian Boy, which was published when he was 21 and won the TM Aluko Prize for Fiction, came second at the Ibrahim Tahir Prize for First Book. He has been nominated thrice for The Future Awards Africa and was a recipient of the Prince Claus Ticket Grant in 2013.

In early 2012, Nwelue was signed to the Pontas Agency in Spain.

Nwelue began writing his first novel, The Abyssinian Boy, when he was in India. The book partly captures his experiences in India as a black man, and its publication catapulted Nwelue to international fame. It received the 2009 TM Aluko Prize for Fiction, came second at the Ibrahim Tahir Prize for First Book, nominated for The Future Awards Africa and was "Book of the Month" for many magazines. It became a national bestseller and was republished in India and the United States. The book was also a commercial success: Nwelue received more than 2.5 million naira as an advance.

Since publishing The Abyssinian Boy in 2009, Nwelue has spent most of his time speaking at different events and festivals and forums. He has courted controversy by describing Chinua Achebe's famous novel Things Fall Apart as the "worst book ever written by an African" and once said of Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka: "He writes very bad dialogue." After being invited to the Man Hong Kong literary festival, Nwelue was denied a visa to Hong Kong, sparking media outcry, the alleged reason being the colour of his skin. The decision was reversed and he got a visa to attend the festival.

Onyeka Nwelue (born 31 January 1988) is a Nigerian filmmaker, talk show host, cultural anthropologist, professor and author whose book, Hip-Hop is Only for Children won the Creative Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2015 Nigerian Writers’ Awards. He adapted his novella, Island of Happiness into an Igbo language film, Agwaetiti Obiụtọ and won Best Feature Film by a Director at 2018 Newark International Film Festival , and went on to be nominated for Best First Feature Film by a Director and the Ousmane Sembene Award for Best Film in an African Language at the 2018 Africa Movie Academy Awards. Island of Happiness was inspired by true events in Oguta.. Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has compared him to American writer, Ishmael Reed.

Onyeka Nwelue and Odega Shawa edited an anthology to mark Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka's 84th birthday. There are over 60 poems from young poets celebrating this giant of African literature.