Sefi Atta was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in January 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 is married to Gboyega Ransome-Kuti, a medical doctor, and son of Olikoye Ransome-Kuti.
She attended Queen"s College, Lagos, and Millfield School in England. In 1985, she graduated from Birmingham University. Atta graduated from the creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Los Angeles
She qualified as a chartered accountant in England and as Certified Public Accountants in the United States. They have one daughter. Sefi"s Lagos-based production company Atta Girl supports Care to Read, a program she initiated to earn funds for legitimate charities through staged readings.
She currently divides her time between Nigeria, England and the United States.
2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.
2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa 2006 Caine Prize for African, shortlist 2005 Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association International David TK Wong Prize, 1st Prize 2004 British Broadcasting Corporation African Performance, 2nd Prize 2003 Glimmer Train′s Very Short Fiction Award, finalist 2003 Red Hen Press Short Story Award, 1st prize 2002 Zoetrope Short Fiction Contest, 3rd Prize 2002 British Broadcasting Corporation African Performance, 2nd Prize 2002 Macmillan Writers Prize Foreign Africa, shortlist Visiting Writer 2010 Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon 2008 Northwestern University 2006 University of Southern Mississippi Atta was on the jury for the 2010 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. A critical study of her works, Contemporary Nigeria: How Sefi Atta Illuminates African Culture and Tradition, edited by Professor Walter Collins, will be published by Cambria Press in 2015.
