Ayo Deforge is a Nigerian writer and storyteller residing in the south of France.

Born in Lagos in 1982, she began writing poetry at thirteen as a way to process personal grief. She studied French at Lagos State University and moved to France in 2012, where she worked in the yachting industry while continuing to write.

An alumna of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Creative Writing Workshop (2007) and the Faber Academy Writing Course (2022), her work has appeared in Litro Magazine, Brittle Paper, Ayo Magazine, Kalahari Review, JAY Lit, Lucy Writers Platform, the Love Grows Stronger in Death anthology, and other publications.

Her debut novel, Tearless, was published in December 2023 and was shortlisted for both the Association of Nigerian Authors Prize for Fiction and the Chinua Achebe Prize for Fiction in 2024. Her memoir, Grips of Grief, followed in June 2025.

Upcoming works include a children’s book series, a prose poetry collection titled The Mind Is Not an Ally (September 2025), and a romantic suspense novel, Under the Rain (December 2025).

Ayo writes across genres with a particular focus on the emotional weight of grief and the complexities of healing.