ROLE MODEL FOR THE WEEK – MR CLAUDE OPARA- NIGERIAN PUBLISHED WRITER AND ARCHITECT BORN IN ZAIRE

 

 

   

Claude Opara is a Nigerian from Imo State. He was born in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) but relocated to Nigeria in the ’70s and grew up in Kaduna. He has a penchant for adventure and writing stories. Although he has written many stories in the past, “…And the night hissed.” is his first publication. In his second year at high school, Claude participated in a Rotary Club school essay competition and was first runner-up. This gingered him to take more interest in creative writing since at the time, his focus had been on fine arts where he had won best artist. He later became a strong member of the school’s Literary & Debating Club where he was the first editor and also wrote short stories/commentaries for the school magazine, ‘The Literati’. With such creative interests he was thus drawn to studying Architecture in college, graduating from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The lure of the literary world did not leave him however. Upon relocating to Lagos in 2001 after his studies, he worked on one of his early stories,’And the Night Hissed’,a gripping thriller, and eventually published it under Authorhouse and later Thomson Press. Claude Opara is married with children.