The American-born daughter of Igbo Nigerian parents, she has regularly visited Nigeria since she was very young. Her novels and stories reflect both her West African heritage and her American life. Okorafor holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University and lives with her family in Illinois.

Okorafor received a 2001 Hurston/Wright literary award for her story "Amphibious Green." She is the author of Who Fears Death (DAW/Penguin Books), The Shadow Speaker (Hyperion/Disney Book Group) and Zahrah the Windseeker (Houghton Mifflin). Zahrah is the winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa. It was also shortlisted for the 2005 Carl Brandon Parallax and Kindred Awards and a finalist for the Garden State Teen Book Award and the Golden Duck Award. The Shadow Speaker was a winner of the Carl Brandon Society The CBS Parallax Award, a Booksense Pick for Winter 2007/2008, a Tiptree Honor Book, a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award, the Andre Norton Award and the Golden Duck Award and an NAACP Image Award nominee.

Okorafor's children's book Long Juju Man is the 2007—08 winner of the Macmillan Writer’s Prize for Africa. Her short stories have been published in anthologies and magazines, including Dark Matter II, Strange Horizons, Moondance magazine and Writers of the Future Volume XVIII.

In 2009, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.

Young Adult - writing as Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

• Zahrah the Windseeker (2005, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; paperback 2008, Graphia/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• The Shadow Speaker (2007, Hyperion/Disney)

Young Adult - writing as Nnedi Okorafor

• Long Juju Man (2009, Macmillan)
• Iridessa and the Fire-Bellied Dragon Frog (2011, Disney Books)
• Akata Witch (2011, Viking/Penguin)

Adult - writing as Nnedi Okorafor

• Who Fears Death (2010, DAW/Penguin)