Born in 1966 at the beginning of the Biafran-Nigerian civil war, Abani lived a childhood of privilege, growing up with servants, cooks, nannies, the things the typical Nigerian, locked in a continual struggle with poverty, corruption, and violence, could barely dream of. When he was 16 he published his first novel, a thriller called Masters of the Board that won awards and got him anointed “Africa’s answer to Frederick Forsyth,” an appellation he refers to now with a grin.

He was thrown in jail two years after the book was published because the government believed it served as the foundation for a failed coup attempt. Abani spent time in prison on three occasions for his “subversive” writings, once in solitary confinement in the Kiri Kiri maximum security facility that few made it out of alive. After his unexplained release, he left for England where he lived for several years before moving to the US where he now teaches at the University of California, Riverside.