Meet Enuma

Enuma Okoro is a Nigerian-American author, writer, lecturer, curator, and arts and culture critic. She is a weekly columnist for the Financial Times weekend newspaper. Her column, “The Art of Life,” reflects her broader research and writing interests: how the intersection of art, philosophy, spirituality, ecology and culture can speak to the human condition and interrogate how we live with ourselves and one another, and how we relate to the more-than-human. Underlying this interrogation is a deeper interest in knowledge systems, from ethno-epistemology (black feminist, BIPOC, African and diasporan) to critical theory, and the power of narrative and story. She writes, lectures, curates and hosts public conversations with the grounding premise that stories, through their varying mediums, are how we challenge old or false narratives, free our imaginations and tell new and expanded truths that shift perceptions and instigate change. And she believes that stories are everywhere. Even the trees and the rivers and the animals hold them.

The stories we believe and tell ourselves become the stories we live by, and by which we build our interior and exterior worlds. Yet most of our working stories are formed from unquestioned and inherited narratives, and those primarily steeped in patriarchal and Western / European traditions and epistemologies.

Her educational training and professional background is in Psychology and Communication, Family Systems Therapy, and Theology. She is a certified Spiritual Director in the Ignatian Tradition (Jesuits).

Okoro has published four books of nonfiction, and her articles and essays have been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Artsy, Harper’s Bazaar, Cultured Magazine, CNN African Voices, Vogue, AEON Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Essence Magazine, and other media outlets. Her poetry and fiction is published in anthologies.

She curated the multidisciplinary group exhibition, “The Flesh of the Earth” for Hauser & Wirth gallery (February 1 - April 6 2024). “Through work by artists Olafur Eliasson, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, Haley Mellin, Cassi Namoda, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Billie Zangewa, the presentation, in the words of Okoro, ‘encourages us all to consider ways of decentering ourselves from the prevalent anthropocentric narrative, to reimagine a more intimate relationship with the earth and to renew our connection with the life-force energy that surges through all of creation, both human and more-than-human.”

In addition to writing and speaking, Okoro teaches seminars and leads developmental workshops on topics such as; Identity and (Dis)belonging, Understanding the Power of Story and Narrative for Transforming Communities, and the Role of the Arts in Shifting Cultural Perceptions, and Challenging Ways of Knowing.

In June, 2012, Okoro became the first woman of African descent to speak from the historic 200 year-old platform of The American Church in Paris, France. Martin Luther King Jr. was the first man of African descent to speak from the same platform in October, 1965.

She has delivered a TEDx talk on the global perceptions of multicultural women, identity and the power of cultural collisions.

Her multiple speaking invitations have included the Harvard Business School, Oxford University, Princeton University, the Business for Africa and the World Forum in Egypt, the Atlantic Dialogues Conference (Policy Center for the New South) in Marrakech, The Abu Dhabi Culture Summit, The Bloomberg Media Conference, Frieze, and more.

Born in New York city and raised in Cote d’Ivoire, England, North America and Nigeria, she speaks and teaches globally at universities, organizations, corporate institutions, and conferences.

Her first book, Reluctant Pilgrim was recognized by USA Book News as a 2010 Best Books Award Winning Finalist for Religion, and received the 2011 Indie National Book Awards Winning Finalist in Spirituality and Non-Fiction.

In March 2018 she was recognized on the 100 Most Inspiring Women in Nigeria list and featured in The Guardian national newspaper.

Okoro has been the recipient of a writing fellowship at MacDowell Residency (2023) creative fellowships at the Callaloo Creative Writing Program at Brown University (2014), the Kimbilio Writing Residency in Taos(2016), New Mexico and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation’s International Artists Residency Program in Umbria, Italy (2018) . In the fall of 2019 she was the Literary Guest-In-Residence at The BACASItaly Center for Culture, Arts and Science in Vallo di Diano, southern Italy.