Nwosu Pita Nwana (1881 — 1968) was a Nigerian novelist and carpenter.[1] He is chiefly known as the writer of the first Igbo novel Omenuko.[2][3][4] Nwana's Omenuko is regarded as the bedrock for fiction in Igbo literature.[5]
Nwana was born in 1881. He was the youngest child in a family of seven.[5] He worked as a carpenter at Methodist College Uzuakoli and later as an interpreter for Rev. J. Wood at then Ibo Institute.[5] In 1933, he wrote Omenuko which won a prize in a competition run by the International African Institute,[6] and was later published by Longman in 1935.[7]