Nigeria

Amatisoritsero Ede
Amatisoritsero Ede, born in Nigeria, was a Hindu Monk with the Hare Krishna Movement. He has worked as a Book Editor with a major Nigerian publisher, Spectrum Books. In 1993 he won the runner-up prize of the Association of Nigerian Authors' (ANA) Poetry Competition with the manuscript of "A Writer's Pains"; in 1998 the ANA All Africa Christopher Okigbo Prize for Literature (endowed by Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel Laureate for Literature) with his first collection of poems, Collected Poems: A writer's Pains & Caribbean Blues (Bremen, Germany: Yeti Press, 1998; Lagos: Oracle Books, 2001) and second prize in the first May Ayim Award: International Black German Literary Prize, in 2004. He appears in the following anthologies: TOK 1: Writing the New Toronto Helen Walsh ed. (Toronto: Zephyr Press, 2006), Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Nigerian Writing Nduka Otiono & Diego Okonyedo eds. (Yenogoa, Nigeria: Treasure Books, 2006), May Ayim Award Anthology Peggy Piesche et al eds. (Berlin, Germany: Orlanda Verlag, 2004), The Fate of Vultures: BBC Prize-Winning Poetry. Peter Porter et al. eds. (Oxford: Heinemann International, 1989), Und auf den Strassen eine Pest Uche Nduka ed. (Bad Honnef, Germany: Horlemann Verlag, 1996) and Voices from the Fringe: An ANA Anthology of New Nigerian Poetry Harry Garuba ed. (Lagos: Malthouse Press, 1988). His second poetry collection is forthcoming: Globetrotter & Hitler's Children. New York: (Akashic Books, summer 2009). He was the 2005-2006 Writer-in-Residence at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada under the auspices of PEN Canada's Writer-in-Exile network. He edited Sentinel Online poetry journal from 2005 to 2007 at www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk., and is Editor and Managing Editor respectively of Gboungboun Magazine and PONAL Quarterly Forum of the Carleton-affiliated Project on New African Literatures, PONAL, at www.projectponal.com. He is a SSHRC Fellow and Doctoral Candidate in English literature at Carleton University, Ottawa, and Publisher and Managing Editor of the Maple Tree Literary Supplement at www.mtls.com.

Rogerson Ntor-Ue
Rogerson Torpie Ntor-Ue is an Ogoni journalist from Nigeria who fled his country immediately after the execution of the Ogoni writer, activist and Honorary Member of PEN Canada Ken Saro-Wiwa. At risk for reprisals that were being inflicted on Ogoni activists and persecuted for his publications, Ntor-Ue left his country in 1995. He stayed in Accra, Ghana, from November 1995 to November 2000, and then in the United States from November 2000 to March 2003. He arrived in Canada in 2003. In 1994, Ntor-Ue’s book, Ogoni Kingdom: The Survival Revolution, was seized by authorities at the printing press in Port Harcourt because of its political content. The managing director of the press was arrested, and the police began searching for Ntor-Ue, who managed to escape being found by hiding at his wife's isolated compound in Kala Bari. Ntor-Ue's newspaper, OgoniScope, was known to back Ogoni minority rights.