Official Bio (< 200 words):
KÁNYIN Olorunnisola is a multi-disciplinary experimentalist of Yoruba descent. His full-length poetry collection, ARA’LUEBO: The Immigrant Monologues, is forthcoming in March 2026, courtesy of Acre Books. His debut short film, Chiaroscuro, premiered at the 2024 Rising Tide Film Festival. His writing appears in Al Jazeera, FIYAH, Georgia Review, Chicago Review of Books, and elsewhere. He is the recipient of the 2023 AWP Intro Journals Award for Creative Nonfiction, 2023 Don F. Hendrie Jr. Prize in Fiction, 2022 OutWrite Chapbook Prize, 2020 Speculative Literature Foundation’s Diverse Writers Grant, 2020 K&L Prize for African Literature, a Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship, and a Levitetz Innovation Seed Grant. He was a finalist for the 2024 Miles Morland Writing Scholarship, 2023 Loraine Williams Poetry Prize, 2023 Evaristo Prize for African Poetry (formerly Brunel), 2020-2021 Glass Chapbook Series Contest, 2021 Gerald Kraak Award, Jerome K. Phipps Prize for Poetry (2022, 2023, 2024) and 2019 Koffi Addo Prize for Creative Nonfiction. He has an MFA from the University of Alabama, where he taught creative writing and edited the Black Warrior Review.
Official Bio (< 100 words):
KÁNYIN Olorunnisola is the author of the poetry collection, ARA’LUEBO: The Immigrant Monologues (Acre Books, 2026). His debut short film, Chiaroscuro, premiered at the 2024 Rising Tide Film Festival. His writing appears in Al Jazeera, FIYAH, Georgia Review, and the Chicago Review of Books. He is the founder of Sprinng Inc., a literary nonprofit, and former Nonfiction Editor of the Black Warrior Review. His work has been supported by Harvard University’s Woodberry Poetry Room, the Levitetz Leadership Program, Speculative Literature Foundation, and the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP). He has an MFA from the University of Alabama.
Official Bio (< 50 words):
KÁNYIN Olorunnisola is a Yoruba writer, journalist, and filmmaker. He is the author of ARA’LUEBO: The Immigrant Monologues (Acre Books, 2026) and two poetry chapbooks. His work appears in Al Jazeera, FIYAH, Georgia Review, Chicago Review of Books and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the University of Alabama.
FAQ
How would you describe your artistic and literary style?
I like to think of my approach to work as an artist at play. I do not write unless the process feels transformative, and to some extent…reckless. I enjoy consuming experimental art, so the work that excites me—the kind of work that I’m excited to create—also tends to be experimental. This applies to my screenwriting, poetry, and prose. I don’t want to write unless I feel like each new attempt at creating feels like dipping my toes in hitherto uncharted waters.
Generally speaking, I cut my literary teeth on African writing: Wole Soyinka, Akinwunmi Ishola, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and JP Clark. But my work in recent years has been inspired by the lineage of the Black avant-garde across mediums. I am thinking of Langston Hughes, Brother Ah, Kara Walker, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ntozake Shange, Frank Ocean, Sonia Sanchez, Missy Elliot, and Isaac Julien. I write to disrupt.
Why do you center Blackness in your work?
I think it has something to do with my father being such a dedicated champion of cultural pride. Back in Nigeria, he held a political office that required him to defend and promote Yoruba culture in the face of neocolonial hegemony. His passion was infectious; I started to see my culture (and my race, by extension) as existing in constant battle with the legacy of whiteness. It was my first real political awakening. This intensified when, at sixteen, I watched the movie Malcolm X for the first time, and I was transformed. I fell into the rabbit hole of Black anti-colonial and liberationist texts.
Is your work always autobiographical?
Always? No. Of course, they start off that way: an idea hatching from a lived experience then fledges into a fully-formed work that might bear little resemblance to its hatchling form. At heart, I’m a storyteller. I invite you into an experience; sometimes it’s a raw expression of what I feel deeply in my soul, and sometimes the experience is a little curated. And that’s a valid form of expression too.
Why did you change your pen name?
Stylizing my name is a choice that was years in the making. Until recently, I went by the anglicized version of my full name: Kanyinsola Olorunnisola. Moving to the West came with its own existential stressors; but there were practical ones to. There was the casual but ceaseless inconvenience of introducing myself and watching people struggle to remember my full name. Many think it’s a mouthful. I don’t agree, and for a long time, I did not want to change or shorten my name. But over time, I compromised because if people can’t remember your name, how are they going to recommend your books or talk about your work? I now shorten my first name, making it all uppercase and refusing to anglicize it. In the absence of its fullness, I want to draw attention to it, because even when truncated, it still means something precious: “to add a drop of honey.” Where bell hooks challenged authority by minimizing her name, I challenge erasure by amplifying mine.
Are you available for readings, interviews, or collaborations?
Yes, I am certainly available for all of these. I love talking to the media, presenting my work, and collaborating with institutions and other artists. I am currently working on a series of film projects with filmmakers here in Boston.
Feel free to shoot me an email: kanyinsolaolorunnisola@gmail.com. I do not have an agent or assistants at the moment, so I handle all of my correspondence myself. I apologize if it takes me a few days to respond.
How can I support your work?
Please buy my new book, Ara’luebo: The Immigrant Monologues here. It is a poetry-theater hybrid that details the immigrant experience from the perspectives of five Nigerian(-American) characters. Working on it was a transcendental experience. I am excited to share it with the world!
KÁNYIN 