Background
Atukwei Okai was born in 1941 in Accra, Greater Accra, Ghana. From the age of three for eight years Okai lived in the country's Northern Region, where his father was a school headmaster in Gambaga.
writer academic Cultural activist
Atukwei Okai was born in 1941 in Accra, Greater Accra, Ghana. From the age of three for eight years Okai lived in the country's Northern Region, where his father was a school headmaster in Gambaga.
Okai was educated at the Gambaga Native Authority School, Nalerigu Middle Boys' School, and then at Methodist Middle Boys' School in Accra and Accra High School. He also attended the University of Ghana. Moreover, he received a Master of Letters from the Gorky Literary Institute in 1967.
Okai subsequently took up a post-graduate scholarship from the University of Ghana to pursue studies in the United Kingdom, earning his Master of Philosophy degree in 1971 from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London, which is today part of University College London.
Okai began teaching at the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1971 as lecturer in Russian literature at the Department of Modern Languages, and in 1984 became Senior Research Fellow in African Literature at the Institute of African Studies. He also was a head of the GaDangbe department of Education at the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.
In 1989 he was elected the first Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers' Association (PAWA), which position he still holds
In 1981 he was elected to Honorary Membership of the National Syndicate of Spanish Writers and to Associate Membership of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).
Atukwei Okai and his wife Beatrice have five daughters.