Otieno, Daniel Otieno is a Kenyan scholar of literature and cultural studies. He was born in Siaya, a small town in the western part of Kenya. Siaya, as small as it is, is a giant, and this reality is allegorical of Otieno as well. The point is, he embodies the spirit of his village, which is to rise above limitations and make a name for himself. His intellectual journey has been a story of rising from the most challenging circumstances to claiming and utilising the little opportunities because the dream depends on them. Currently, he is enrolled at the Faculty of Languages and Literature, Department of English and American Studies at the University of Bayreuth, Bavaria, Germany, where he is undertaking his doctoral research in African migration and diasporic novels. His main focus is on the literary representation of failure (in its economic and sociological interpretations) among Africans in the cosmopolitan West, inspired by the dream to rise above their limitations and deprivations in Africa. These subjects, have for a long time been ignored, overlooked, and neglected in the construction of narratives about the cosmopolitan West in the postcolony, especially in Kenya. From this, it is possible to observe that Otieno is interested in amplifying marginalised voices, and illuminating invisible bodies, which he believes is his humanistic entry point into the world of academia and research.

Prior to his doctoral studies, Otieno earned his Master of Arts in Literature at the famous Department of Literature, in University of Nairobi. The department is famous not only in Africa for its central role unsettling and challenging epistemology and knowledge production, being a hub of political activism that addressed the challenges of the postcolony through the thoughts and philosophy of the likes of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, O’kot P’ Bitek, Taban Lo Liyong, Chris Wanjala, among others. It is also famed for the language debate in teaching Literature in Africa. The emphasis on the culture and attributes of this department is significant to understanding the person and the professional that Otieno has become over time, as a scholar and a writer. As a child of the department, he has been acculturated into social and political consciousness, nurtured in brevity and confidence to rise above dogmas in challenging the establishment and the most unsettling normalcies.

Aside from that, Otieno is an educator, a trained and licensed teacher of English and literature, a profession that he is passionate about. Teaching, for him, is not just a calling; it is popularly renowned. Instead, he perceives teaching as making a difference, where, as the teacher and instructor, he inspires and encourages his learners to take centre stage. Pedagogically, his classes are learner-centric, relying entirely on critical thinking to probe and understand societies in the most intriguing way. He does not show the way. He leads his learners into the wilderness, and together they find their way towards new knowledge.

Otieno is a young and budding poet and a writer of fiction. While none of his works are published, he has an extensive breadth of manuscript as he exploits new ways of sharing his ideas. For instance, he publishes short poems through his WhatsApp account, and these poems have mostly been his reflections of life as an immigrant student in Germany. Literature, for him, is the most compelling avenue of representation of the human condition, and his goal as a writer is to make the world a better place by not only acting as a mirror to society, but also acting as a critique of society itself. Currently, he is working on a novel which is also thematically centred on migration, which seeks to narrate this concept in the most unique and thought-provoking way. That is to say, Otieno transcends the normal and is experimental and adventurous in his thoughts and writings. In addition to that, his preoccupation with migration as a thematic angle in the novel affirms his interest in understanding the migrant and diasporic experience. He also has a personal blog, The Point of View (otienoandotieno.com), where he comments on social and political topics, literature, music, film, and other products of popular culture.