Adewale Maja-Pearce Biography

British-Nigerian writer, born in London of British and Yoruba parents; he grew up in Lagos and was educated at the University College of Wales, Swansea, and London University's School of Oriental and African Studies. He became a researcher for Index on Censorship. Loyalties and Other Stories (1986) are short stories drawing on his experiences of Nigeria. He has subsequently made the documentary essay his principal medium, in the belief that it is most suited to his investigations of the British and Nigerian cultures he has inherited. His most highly regarded works are In My Father's Country (1987), an account of his travels in Nigeria, and How Many Miles to Babylon? (1990), on racial consciousness in contemporary Britain. His other publications include Who's Afraid of Wole Soyinka?: Essays on Censorship (1991), an examination of censorship in Africa, and A Mask Dancing: Nigerian Novelists of the Eighties (1992). He edited Christopher Okigbo: Collected Poems (1986) and The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English (1990).