Atukwei Okai was born in Accra, Ghana, in 1941 and earned his M.A. (Litt.) from the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in 1967. He obtained his Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree in 1971 from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London, U.K.
In 1968 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (U.K); in 1979 he was awarded Honorary Fellowship in Writing of the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A. 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). A Fellow and Past President of the Ghana Association of Writers (GWA), he is the Secretary- General of the Pan African Writers Association (PAWA).
Okai’s poems have been translated into several languages, including Russian, Spanish, German, Arabic, French and Italian.
In July, 2007, The National Award of Member of The Order of The Volta was conferred on Professor Atukwei Okai.
