| Diran Adebayo | |
| Honorific Suffix: | FRSL |
| Birth Name: | Oludiran Adebayo |
| Birth Date: | 1968 8, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Islington, London, England |
| Occupation: | Writer, cultural critic and academic |
| Nationality: | British |
| Education: | Malvern College |
| Alma Mater: | University of Oxford |
| Notableworks: | Some Kind of Black (1996) |
| Relatives: | Dotun Adebayo (brother) |
| Awards: | Author's Club First Novel Award |
Oludiran "Diran" Adebayo FRSL (born 30 August 1968) is a British novelist, cultural critic and academic best known for his 1996 novel Some Kind of Black.
Oludiran Adebayo was born on 30 August 1968 [1] in London, to Nigerian parents. He won a Major Scholarship when he was 12 to Malvern College and is an Oxford University Law graduate.[2] [3] Among his friends at Wadham College, Oxford, were the writers Monica Ali[4] and Hari Kunzru.
Prior to winning the Saga Prize in 1995, Adebayo worked as senior news reporter at The Voice newspaper and as a reporter on BBC Television
Adebayo's debut novel, Some Kind of Black (1997),[5] centred on the youthful adventures of its protagonist, Dele, was one of the first to articulate a British-born African perspective, and won several awards.(below) His follow-up book, the fable My Once Upon A Time, was set in a near-future London-like western city and fused noir with Yoruba folklore. The novel made use of the song "Heaven and Hell" by Chef Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan .[6] In 2009, Adebayo donated the short story "Calculus" to Oxfam's "Ox-Tales" project.[7]
Adebayo was a columnist for the now defunct New Nation newspaper, and has written on race, arts and sports for newspapers such as The Guardian, The Independent and New Statesman magazine.
In 2004 Adebayo co-edited New Writing 12, the British Council's annual anthology of British and Commonwealth literature, with Blake Morrison and Jane Rogers. In 2005, Adebayo was the first guest director of the Cheltenham Literature Festival.[8]
In 2006, Adebayo was the International Writing Fellow at Southampton University,[9] before a residency at Georgetown University.[10] In 2012-13, Adebayo was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow.[5] Adebayo is BA Creative Writing Course Leader at the University of Kingston, London.[11]
Adebayo is a former trustee of The Book Trust and the Arts Council of England..[12]
In 2022, Adebayo adapted and serialised Some Kind of Black for BBC Radio 4.[13] The novel is now a Virago Modern Classic.
Adebayo is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Santa Maddalena Foundation,[14]
Some Kind of Black (1997) won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain's New Writer of the Year Award, the Author's Club First Novel Award, the 1996 Saga Prize, and a Betty Trask Award.[15] It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize.
In 2000, Vienna University awarded Adebayo the $60,000 Abraham Woursell stipend, a prize for young noteworthy European writers.
In 2001 the writer Zadie Smith, praised him for his "humanness",[16] arguing that he is one of a few English writers who "trade in both knowledge and feeling".[17] In 2002 The Times Literary Supplement named him as one of the Best Young British Novelists.[18]
In 2017, he was one of 20 people to have their portraits taken by Oxford University for permanent display, as part of its "Diversifying Portraiture" initiative, in recognition of his "achievements and contributions to the University and to the literary world".[19] [20]
He is the younger brother of the writer, journalist, publisher and broadcaster Dotun Adebayo.[21]