Abiodun Omolara Ogundipe was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to a family of educators and clergy. She attended Queen's School, Ede, and went on to become the first woman to obtain a first-class BA Honours degree in English at University College Ibadan, then a college of the University of London. She later earned a doctorate in Narratology (the theory of narrative) from Leiden University, one of the oldest universities in Europe. She taught English Studies, Writing, Comparative Literature and Gender from the perspectives of cultural studies and development at universities in several continents, and was also a Professor of Englsh and Comparative Lterature at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State Nigeria. She rose to prominence early in her career in the midst of a male-dominated artistic field concerned about the problems afflicting African men and women.