Nduka Otiono

• Name — Nduka Anthony Otiono • Birthplace — Kano, Nigeria • Occupation — Academic • Titles — Director of Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada • Known for — DisPlace: The Poetry of Nduka Otiono • Alma Mater — * University of Ibadan (B.A. (Hons), MA) • University of Alberta (PhD) • Influences — Chinua Achebe • Discipline — English and Film Studies Scholar • Doctoral Advisor — Heather Zwicker • Website — https: ndukaotiono.com/

Nduka Anthony Otiono hails from Ogwashi-Ukwu in Delta State, south-southern Nigeria but was born in Kano (the capital city of Kano State, northern Nigeria). He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Alberta in Canada (2011) in addition to a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English and an MA in English from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in 1987 and 1990 respectively.

Otiono was a journalist at the early part of his career. He worked in print media, with a focus on literary and cultural journalism, and earned expertise at the editing and management levels. During his fifteen years journalistic career, He was the National Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (2001–2005) the founding editor of The Post Express Literary Supplement (PELS), which won Literary Column of the Year 1997 and the first ANA Merit Award in 1998. The Night Hides with a Knife (short stories), which won the ANA/Spectrum Prize, Voices in the Rainbow (poems), which was a finalist for the ANA/Cadbury Poetry Prize, and Love in a Time of Nightmares (poems), for which he received the James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing, are just a few of the works he has published. He made the transition to academia in 2004 and started working as an adjunct lecturer at the University of Ibadan's Department of English.

Otiono left Nigeria for Canada in 2006. In 2011, he obtained his PhD in English from the University of Alberta and in the same year, he held a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, where he was also appointed Visiting assistant professor. In 2014, he became an assistant professor at Carleton's Institute of African Studies, Ottawa, Canada. In 2020, he was promoted to associate professor at Carleton's Institute of African Studies. In 2022, he became the Director, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, and was also appointed a Faculty Advisor for Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion by the university authority in the same year.

Otiono research interests include Cultural Studies, Oral Literature, Postcolonial Studies, Media and Communication Studies, Globalization and Popular Culture.