A. Igoni Barrett

Adrian Igonibo Barrett (born 26 March 1979) is a Nigerian writer of short stories and novels. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature.

Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, to a Nigerian mother and the Jamaican novelist and poet Lindsay Barrett, A. Igoni Barrett studied agriculture at the University of Ibadan. In 2007 he moved to Lagos, where he met his wife, the Dutch journalist and writer Femke van Zeijl.
His first book, a collection of short stories entitled From Caves of Rotten Teeth, was published in 2005 and reissued in 2008. A story from the collection, "The Phoenix", won the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition.
His second collection of stories, Love Is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013; according to the Boston Globe, the collection "pulses with an indomitable life force that is, by turns, tender and fierce". Love is Power, or Something Like That was chosen as a "best book of 2013" by NPR and Flavorwire.
His debut novel, entitled Blackass, was published in 2015.
Invited as a participant to various literary festivals, Barrett was a guest reader on the opening night of the PEN World Voices Festival in 2013, and a guest writer at the Serpentine Galleries' Miracle Marathon in 2016 and the 2018 edition of Festivaletteratura. He was the founding organizer of the BookJam reading series in Lagos, Nigeria, which featured the writers Jude Dibia, Michela Wrong, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Binyavanga Wainaina, Helon Habila and Tsitsi Dangarembga, among others.
Barrett's work has appeared in several publications, including Al Jazeera English and The Guardian.

A. Igoni Barrett was a winner of the BBC World Service short story competition for 2005 with a story entitled "The Phoenix", which was broadcast on 2 January 2006.
In 2010, he was awarded a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship. In 2011, he was awarded a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship and a Bellagio Center Residency.
Barrett was named as one of 39 sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 in the Hay Festival and Rainbow Book Club Africa39 project celebrating Port Harcourt UNESCO World Book Capital 2014.
His debut novel Blackass won the People's Literature Publishing House and the Chinese Foreign Literature Society's 21st Century Best Foreign Novel Award.
He was a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow in 2018.