Helon Habila

Helon Habila was born in Kaltungo, Nigeria in 1967. He graduated from the University of Jos in 1995 where he read Literature, and lectured in English for two years at the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, before turning to journalism in 1999. He worked as Arts Editor for the Lagos newspaper, Vanguard, during which time he received the country's biggest award, the MUSON (Musical Society of Nigeria) Poetry Prize for his poem, Another Age in 2000.

Habila was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2001 for his short story, Love Poems. His first novel, Waiting for an Angel, was awarded the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book (African Region) in 2003. He was the first African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia and the William B. Quarton fellow at the 2004 University of Iowa International Writing Programme, he was also the John Farrar Fellow in Fiction at the 2003 Bread Loaf Writers Conference. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published by Hamish Hamilton in 2007. He is currently working on a non-fiction book, Lagos, due to be published in 2009.

Titles

Oil on Water (Hamish Hamilton, 2010)

Lagos  (Granta, 2009)

Measuring Time  (Hamish Hamilton, 2007)

Waiting for an Angel  (Hamish Hamilton, 2002)