Background
Tochi Onyebuchi was born in 1987 in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States, and raised in Connecticut. His name Tochi, in Igbo, the language of his tribe in Nigeria, means 'praise God'.
Tochi Onyebuchi
333 Christian St, Wallingford, CT 06492, United States
Choate Rosemary Hall where Tochi Onyebuchi studied.
University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas, 75006 Paris, France
University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas where Tochi Onyebuchi studied.
Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, United States
Yale University where Tochi Onyebuchi received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
721 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, United States
New York University Tisch School of the Arts where Tochi Onyebuchi received a Master of Fine Arts degree.
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
Columbia University where Tochi Onyebuchi received a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees.
200 Avenue de la République, 92000 Nanterre, France
Paris Nanterre University where Tochi Onyebuchi studied.
2018
Tochi Onyebuchi at Aké Arts and Book Festival 2018.
2018
Tochi Onyebuchi with Marie Lu, Sabaa Tahir, Dhonielle Clayton, Nic Stone, and Randy Ribay at the 2018 Los Angeles Times Festival.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic Con 2019.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic Con 2019.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi with Mark Siegel, Maura Milan, and Ashley Poston at 2019 San Diego Comic-Con.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi at New England Independent Booksellers Association Conference 2019.
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic-Con.
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic-Con.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi with Jackson Alberts and friends.
Tochi Onyebuchi with Jenn Knoch, Zoraida Córdova, L.L. McKinney, Carolyn Forde, and Nadia L. Hohn.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi with Nadia L. Hohn.
Tochi Onyebuchi with Natasha Pulley, Renée Ahdieh, and Mandy Curtis at Texas Book Festival.
Tochi Onyebuchi at New England Public Radio.
Tochi Onyebuchi. Photo by Christina Brujeria.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi with Kat Cho.
Tochi Onyebuchi Ruoxi Chen at BookExpo.
Tochi Onyebuchi with Ruoxi Chen.
2018
Tochi Onyebuchi at Aké Arts and Book Festival 2018.
2018
Tochi Onyebuchi with Marie Lu, Sabaa Tahir, Dhonielle Clayton, Nic Stone, and Randy Ribay at the 2018 Los Angeles Times Festival.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic Con 2019.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic Con 2019.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi with Mark Siegel, Maura Milan, and Ashley Poston at 2019 San Diego Comic-Con.
2019
Tochi Onyebuchi at New England Independent Booksellers Association Conference 2019.
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic-Con.
Tochi Onyebuchi at New York Comic-Con.
333 Christian St, Wallingford, CT 06492, United States
Choate Rosemary Hall where Tochi Onyebuchi studied.
Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, United States
Yale University where Tochi Onyebuchi received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
Columbia University where Tochi Onyebuchi received a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees.
University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas, 75006 Paris, France
University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas where Tochi Onyebuchi studied.
200 Avenue de la République, 92000 Nanterre, France
Paris Nanterre University where Tochi Onyebuchi studied.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi with Jackson Alberts and friends.
Tochi Onyebuchi with Jenn Knoch, Zoraida Córdova, L.L. McKinney, Carolyn Forde, and Nadia L. Hohn.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi with Nadia L. Hohn.
Tochi Onyebuchi with Natasha Pulley, Renée Ahdieh, and Mandy Curtis at Texas Book Festival.
Tochi Onyebuchi at New England Public Radio.
Tochi Onyebuchi. Photo by Christina Brujeria.
721 Broadway, New York, NY 10003, United States
New York University Tisch School of the Arts where Tochi Onyebuchi received a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Tochi Onyebuchi
Tochi Onyebuchi with Kat Cho.
Tochi Onyebuchi Ruoxi Chen at BookExpo.
Tochi Onyebuchi with Ruoxi Chen.
(In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically ca...)
In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically call forth sin from a sinner in the form of sin-beasts - lethal creatures spawned from feelings of guilt. Taj is the most talented of the aki, young sin-eaters indentured by the mages to slay the sin-beasts. But Taj’s livelihood comes at a terrible cost. When he kills a sin-beast, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on his mind. Most aki are driven mad by the process, but Taj is cocky and desperate to provide for his family. When Taj is called to eat a sin of a member of the royal family, he’s suddenly thrust into the center of a dark conspiracy to destroy Kos. Now Taj must fight to save the princess that he loves - and his own life.
https://www.amazon.com/Beasts-Made-Night-Tochi-Onyebuchi/dp/0448493918/?tag=2022091-20
2017
(Taj is headed west, but the consequences of leaving Kos b...)
Taj is headed west, but the consequences of leaving Kos behind confront him at every turn. Innocent civilians flee to refugee camps as Karima's dark magic continues to descend on the city. Taj must return, but first, he needs a plan. With Arzu's help, Taj and Aliya make it to the village of her ancestors, home of the tastahlik - sin-eaters with Taj's same ability to both battle and call forth sins. As Taj comes to terms with his new magic, he realizes there are two very different groups of tastahlik--one using their powers for good, the other for more selfish ends.
https://www.amazon.com/Crown-Thunder-Tochi-Onyebuchi/dp/0448493942/?tag=2022091-20
2018
(The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters ha...)
The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky. In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life. Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together. And they're willing to fight an entire war to get there.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Girls-Tochi-Onyebuchi/dp/0451481674/?tag=2022091-20
2019
(Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in...)
Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in anger, Riot Baby is both a global dystopian narrative an intimate family story with quietly devastating things to say about love, fury, and the black American experience. Ella and Kev are brother and sister, both gifted with extraordinary power. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by structural racism and brutality. Their futures might alter the world. When Kev is incarcerated for the crime of being a young black man in America, Ella - through visits both mundane and supernatural - tries to show him the way to a revolution that could burn it all down.
https://www.amazon.com/Riot-Baby-Tochi-Onyebuchi/dp/1250214750/?tag=2022091-20
2020
Tochi Onyebuchi was born in 1987 in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States, and raised in Connecticut. His name Tochi, in Igbo, the language of his tribe in Nigeria, means 'praise God'.
Tochi Onyebuchi attended Choate Rosemary Hall from 2001 till 2005. Then he matriculated to Yale University. During his time at Yale, he co-founded the Undergraduate Political Economy Reading Group and traveled extensively throughout the Balkans researching his senior thesis on regional illicit trade and how, during the wars in the 1990s, it helped to create the current political-criminal apparatus. In 2009 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.
After working briefly at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, conducting research on international elections and election observation methodology, he enrolled at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in the spring of 2012 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in dramatic writing. During his time there, he penned numerous screenplays and stageplays that explored facets of the international criminal organizations he studied at Yale. He was chosen, during his final year, to represent New York University as one of three student-delegates at the 4th Biennial Festival of Thinkers conference in Abu Dhabi.
In 2012, he enrolled at Columbia Law School. There he studied in the program consisting of two years of law study at Columbia Law School, followed by one year of study in Paris at the Institut d'études politiques ("Sciences-Po"). In the end, in 2015, he received a French Master of Arts degree in global business law and a United States Doctor of Jurisprudence degree in international and comparative law. At Columbia Law School, he worked with a prisoners’ rights organization in the West Bank. Onyebuchi also studied political science at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas and Paris Nanterre University.
At the beginning of Tochi Onyebuchi's writing career, he has worked in criminal justice, the tech industry, and immigration law. He began working as a freelance writer in September 2011. His work has appeared in various online and print publications such as Asimov's Science Fiction, Jamrock Magazine, Panverse Three, Marvel.com, Groove Magazine, Crimespree Magazine, Ideomancer, Nowhere Magazine, Morningside Muckraker. He also contributed to Uncanny Magazine Issue 30: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy!: September/October 2019 and Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America.
Onyebuchi's first book Beasts Made of Night was published in 2017. In this debut novel, Tochi Onyebuchi conjures up a busy market city inspired by his Nigerian heritage and populates it with a group of outcast kids who shoulder the sins of the rich and powerful. The followed-up book Crown of Thunder (2018) takes us into a walled city/empire where thrown-away street children have a special gift: they are forced to eat the sins of the rich and powerful, ensuring their continued rule until rebellion and insurgency explode. Streetfighters, scientists, mathematicians and artists, refugees and fugitives, come together and struggle with new ways of relating to each other and carrying forward the battle for freedom.
In his most recent novel War Girls (2019), two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria. The intense plot is narrated in alternating third-person perspectives, and the author explores themes surrounding colonization, family, and the injustices of war. The story culminates in an unexpected, heart-wrenching end. His adult debut, Riot Baby, is forthcoming in January 2020. It's a story of two gifted siblings with extraordinary power whose childhoods are destroyed by structural racism and brutality and whose futures might alter the world.
(Rooted in foundational loss and the hope that can live in...)
2020(In the walled city of Kos, corrupt mages can magically ca...)
2017(Taj is headed west, but the consequences of leaving Kos b...)
2018(The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters ha...)
2019Onyebuchi said the storyteller usually becomes a character in the story. He thinks that the more specific you write, the easier it is for your readers to see what's going on in the character. He uses a spiritual background of Nigeria in his work and supplements what he makes up with research.
Each of his books came from a unique image he sees in his mind. His stories come from explaining why those images are there and what the characters in the images are doing. The author wants his readers to see themselves reflected in his book.
Onyebuchi also thinks that sometimes you have to dump what you're working on. Once he had to throw 100 pages of writing away.
Quotations:
"I love the freedom to make things up."
"With fantasy, you get to leave behind the concept of impossibility. The limitation of life can be left behind when you read fantasy. It can also help you deal with problems in the real world. It's leaving chains behind when you read fantasy."
"You need to write the book you can't find in the library. Write the book you want to read."
"Every piece of writing is an opportunity to write better. You learn something from every time you write."
Tochi Onyebuchi prays every day for a new album from System of a Down.
Quotes from others about the person
"Tochi is a charismatic leader adept at forming visions and convincing others of their worth. Due to his integrity, deep intellectual curiosity, and affability, he is quickly welcomed everywhere and is able to form meaningful connections with people from around the country and the world very easily. He's a driven man, always looking over the next horizon, always inspiring others to come along for the ride."
"I have had the amazing pleasure of knowing Tochi for over 20 years. Tochi is, without a doubt, an incredible guy. He is a talented and authentic writer that is able to bring his ideas together and communicate them with an eloquence that is nothing short of mesmerizing. He is passionate about social issues, providing insight and debating various points of view while remaining professional. Tochi is genuine, down to earth, humble, easy to talk to, and even more so a great listener. He has an incredible thirst for knowledge, constantly pushing himself and inspiring those around him to become the best version of themselves."
