Sefi Atta was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1964, to a family of five children. Her father Abdul-Aziz Atta was the Secretary to Federal Government and Head of the Civil Service until his death in 1972, and she was raised by her mother Iyabo Atta.
She attended Queen’s College in Lagos and Millfield School in England. In 1985, she graduated from Birmingham University and trained as a chartered accountant. She moved from England to the United States in 1994 with her husband, Gboyega Ransome-Kuti, a medical doctor. They have one daughter.
Sefi began to write while working as a CPA in New York, and in 2001, she graduated from the creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her short stories have appeared in literary journals such as Los Angeles Review, Mississippi Review and World Literature Today.
Her debut novel Everything Good Will Come was published in the United States, England and Nigeria in 2005. Her short story collection News From Home was published in Nigeria in 2008, England in 2009 and the United States in 2010. Her novel Swallow was published in Nigeria in 2008 and in the United States in 2010. Her books have been translated into several languages.
Also a playwright, her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC and her stage play The Engagement was staged at the MUSON Centre in Lagos in 2005.
In 2005 Sefi Atta won the International PEN David T.K.Wong Prize for Short Fiction for Twilight Trek. The award was judged by David Lodge (Chair), Caryl Phillips & Eva Hoffman and is accompanied by a prize of £7,500. In 2006 Everything Good Will Come won the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, accompanied by a prize of $20,000. In 2009 News From Home won the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa, accompanied by a prize of $10,000.
Atta was on the jury for the 2010 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.[1]
Sefi Atta currently lives in Meridian, Mississippi with her husband and daughter. She was visiting writer at University of Southern Mississippi in 2006. She also spent a quarter as a visiting writer-in-residence at Northwestern University in 2008.