Simon Okotie

Simon Okotie is a fiction writer and essayist. He is the author of Whatever Happened to Harold Absalon?, In the Absence of Absalon and After Absalon, an acclaimed trilogy of novels published by Salt: ‘Fiction as original as this deserves a long shelf life’ (the London Review of Books). His fiction and essays have appeared in Financial Times Weekend, Firmament and gorse and at The London Magazine, 3:AM Magazine and The White Review. ‘Bindings’ was selected for the Best British Short Stories 2021.

Simon was a judge on the 2022 Manchester Fiction prize, the UK’s largest prize for previously unpublished work. He is currently writing a novel, an excerpt of which has been published as a signed limited-edition chapbook by Nightjar Press, and is engaging with the world’s largest collection of Beckett materials as a Creative Fellow at the University of Reading’s Samuel Beckett Research Centre. He is also working on a book-length essay on the future of the novel.

Simon worked for an engineering company in Denmark as part of an international team of technical writers and translators after graduating from the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research at the University of Southampton. He has also worked in the charity sector as a trustee, fundraiser and treasurer, and continues to work as an environmental consultant. He has Master’s degrees in both Philosophy and Transport Planning, and wrote the environment part of the business case for the £18.8 billion Crossrail project (the new Elizabeth line railway through London).