Nigerian writer Ogaga Ifowodo has published three prizewinning books of poetry, most recently The Oil Lamp. His poems have appeared widely in anthologies and magazines, including Voices from all Over: Poems with Notes and Activities (Oxford University Press, 2006), The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry International, AGNI, and The Massachusetts Review. He holds an MFA and a PhD in English from Cornell University and teaches at Texas State University, San Marcos, where he is at work on a fourth poetry collection and a memoir of his 1987–88 detention by the regime of the late Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha. Excerpts from the memoir have been featured in Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (Heinemann), New Writing 14(Granta Books), and African Writing Online. His AGNI story “The Treasonable Parrot” marks his fiction debut. (updated 10/2010)