Chika Unigwe holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, a Master of Arts from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and a PhD in Literature from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, with a thesis titled "In the Shadow of Ala: Igbo Women Writing as an Act of Righting," completed in 2004. Her early short stories won significant recognition: in 2003, she won the BBC World Service Short Story Competition for "Borrowed Smile," received an honourable mention in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition, and won a Flemish literary prize for her first Dutch-language story. In 2004, her story "A Secret" was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. She has also written two Macmillan Readers' books, A Rainbow for Dinner and Ije at School (both 2003), and a children's book, Obioma Plays Football (2022) Chika's debut, De Feniks (The Phoenix), came out in Dutch in 2005 and was shortlisted for awards in Belgium. It was published in English in Nigeria by Farafina Press. Her second novel, On Black Sisters' Street, in 2009 won the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2012 and has been translated into over a dozen languages. Her third novel, Night Dancer, appeared in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature. A collection of short stories, Better Never Than Late, was published in 2019 and was followed by The Middle Daughter in 2023. It was long-listed for the Nigeria Prize for Literature, named a finalist for the Townsend Prize for Fiction in 2025, an award given for outstanding work by Georgia writers, long-listed for the New American Voices Award, and was the UK Indie Book of the Month. A contributor to several anthologies including the O. Henry Prize Winners, 2025 (edited and selected by Edward P. Jones); Of This Our Country (Harper Collins,2021)New Daughters of Africa (2019, edited by Margaret Busby), Lagos Noir (2018, edited by Chris Abani) her works have appeared in Wasafiri, AGNI, Guernica, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, The London Magazine, Aeon, Georgia Review, babble Magazine. The Republic and elsewhere. In 2023, she was commissioned to write an essay for Service95, pop star Dua Lipa's book club magazine, and an essay for Christie's Auction Catalogue, London, 2023 In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Dzanc Diverse Voices Award. She was long-listed for the 2022 London Magazine prize with two short stories, and came second with "The Stench." In 2023, she was knighted by the Kingdom of Belgium into the Order of the Crown for her contributions to literature. She was also a finalist for the 2023 Christoffel Plantiin Prize. In 2025, she won an O. Henry Prize for her short story, "Miracle in Lagos Traffic." Grace, her most recent work came out in the UK in 2026 and will be out in the US in 2027. She was commissioned by and worked with Literary Safari as a contributing author for McGraw Hill's Emerge! literacy program for preK-12 schools for a book coming out in the fall of 2026. Unigwe has judged the Caine Prize, the Man Booker International Prize, the New Voices Award, and others. She is the founder and creative director of Awele Creative Trust, which awards an annual cash prize to the best short story by a Nigerian writer, resident in Nigeria, between 16 and 26. Unigwe is an associate professor of writing at Georgia College and State University, Milledgeville, and lives between Milledgeville and Atlanta, Georgia.