Helon Habila
HELON HABILA (b 1967, Nigeria) is a novelist, poet and professor of creative writing at George Mason University in Virginia. He is the author of the novels Waiting for an Angel, Measuring Time and Oil on Water, a genre-mixing environmental political thriller, which has become an international bestseller.
Habila has won several literary prizes, including the Caine Prize and the Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. His most recent book is The Chibok Girls: the Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria, a non-fiction investigation into the kidnapping of 276 girls in Nigeria by Islamist militants in 2014. His novels have been translated into several languages, including Dutch, Italian, Swedish and French.
In rescuing the Chibok tragedy from “mythic status,” Habila’s unusual primer quietly yet powerfully revives the call to take notice.
ANN HULBERT, THE ATLANTIC - about The Chibok Girls
Helon Habila is that rare combination of storyteller and stylist who challenges expectations while deepening our empathy for ordinary people confronting extraordinary times.
WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZE
Terrorism took our children
Helon Habila, Brit Bildøen, Aage Storm Borchgrevink.
Evil in literature
Hakan Günday, Helon Habila, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, Gisle Selnes
Listening Post: Günday, Habila and Vásquez
Hakan Günday, Helon Habila, Juan Gabriel Vásquez
The girls who disappeared
Closed youth event with Helon Habila