Open City (Cole) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1975
• Where—U.S.
• Raised—Nigeria
• Education—B.A., Kalamazoo College; M.A., University of London; M.Phil.,
   Columbia University
• Awards—Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award; International Literature
   Award (for the German transl.)
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York


Teju Cole is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian, best known for his 2011 novel, Open City. For that work, Cole won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

Biography and work
Cole was born in the United States to Nigerian parents, raised in Nigeria, and moved back to the United States at the age of 17. He received his Bachelor's from Kalamazoo College, an M.A. from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and his M.Phil. from Columbia University.

He is the author of Every Day is for the Thief, a novella published in 2007 in Nigeria and in 2014 in the U.S. His anovel, Open City was published in 2011.

Cole lives in Brooklyn, New York City, and is currently the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College. He is also writer in residence of the Literaturhaus Zurich from June to November, 2014. Cole is a regular contributor to publications including the New York Times, Qarrtsiluni, Granta, New Yorker, Transition, New Inquiry, and A Public Space. He is currently at work on a book-length non-fiction narrative of Lagos, and on "Small Fates." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/16/2014.)