His Urhobo father, David Okpewho, was from Abraka, in Delta State, a retired senior laboratory technician, and his Igbo mother was from Asaba.
[2] Survived by his wife Obiageli Okpewho and children Ediru, Ugo, Afigo, and Onome,[10] he was buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, East Hanover, New Jersey, on 18 September.
[2] He was the author of four respected novels, which are widely studied in Africa and other parts of the world, and translated into other languages:[11] The Victims (1970), The Last Duty (1976, winner in manuscript of the African Arts Prize for Literature, an international competition organized by the African Arts Center, UCLA),[12] Tides (1993, winner of that year's Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Africa region),[13] and Call Me By My Rightful Name (2004).
[15] In the words of Niyi Osundare: "Novelist, poet, folklorist, scholar, and university administrator, Okpewho was a Jack of many trades and master of all, who left his mind-prints on virtually every aspect of African literature and literary studies.
Du Bois Institute at Harvard University (1990),[20] National Humanities Center in North Carolina (1997),[21] and the Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2003).