Edwin Okong’o is an African-born award-winning writer, journalist, humorist, satirist, and educationalist. He has worked as an associate editor and communications director at New America Media, and a reporter for PBS’s Frontline/World. “Kenya: Sweet Home, Obama,” a documentary he made about Kenyans and the 2008 U.S. presidential elections for the PBS program, was voted the People’s Voice at the 2009 Webby Awards.
From July 2007 to July 2008, Okong’o was the editor in chief of Mshale, the Minneapolis-based newspaper for African immigrants. In 2008 Minnesota Monthly voted him Best of Twin Cities in the journalism category for his coverage of the African community. During the 2007 post-election violence in my home country, Kenya, he was a resource for various news media including The New York Times, Al-Jazeera and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
His most recent television appearance was on Africa Laughs, a stand-up comedy series currently airing on the Africa Channel, featuring African-born stand-up comedians in the United States.
Okong’o holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he won several awards for excellence in journalism. He is working on his first book, a memoir in which he tries to understand how he overcame low self esteem to excel in education. The book will be published as soon as he finds a publisher interested in an African story that lacks child soldiers, disease and famine.
He teaches at UC Berkeley.