Category: Arts & Life

Their contributions to literature and women’s cause stood them out. Besides writing, the late Flora Nwapa and the late Buchi Emecheta now share a unique “January” connection. Last month, as the literati marked Nwapa’s posthumous birthday, they also mourned Emecheta’s exit. EVELYN OSAGIE writes on their life and times.

They came before their time. Born at a time when many women were excluded from scholarship and cerebral enterprise, they saw into the future. They envisioned a world where women are not limited by their gender but are independent-minded, excelling and achieving great feats in diverse fields – writing in particular.
Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta were icons of modern literature.
With a mind to unmask the true face of the African woman beyond the one-dimensional depiction of women in their time, they independently charted a course with their ink. They meant to write and, subsequently, right the wrong representation of the “persona” of the African woman. The writings of both women and their presence in the African literary landscape spanned decades.
Today, the duo are guiding lights as their works have inspired a generation of writers and thinkers. Their efforts birthed an endless list of thinkers and ruling women writers with internationally-acclaimed works and literary/cultural movements, including Chimamanda Adichie, Chika Unigwe, Nnedi Okorafor, Tricia Nnaji, Taiye Selasi, NoViolet Bulawayo and Chinelu Okparanta.
Younger generations of women writers have passionately expressed how the works of both writers influenced theirs. Widely acclaimed Adichie is one. She says of Nwapa’s influence on her work: “If Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa and Chukwuemeka Ike had not written the books they did, when they did, and how they did, I would perhaps not have had the emotional courage to write my own books.”
She also speaks of Emecheta’s influence on her, thus: “I read and admired all her books. Destination Biafra was very important for my research when I was writing Half of a Yellow Sun. The book I adored was The Joys of Motherhood, for its sparkling intelligence and a certain kind of honest, lived, intimate insight into working-class colonial Nigeria.”

The two writers connect
Besides sharing the name “Florence”, over the years, critics have posited that both writers share a lot in common. They linked the thematic preoccupation of the works of both writers, observing that their works highlight diverse social themes, such as interogate issues in women’s empowerment and independence, freedom through education, child slavery, motherhood and Biafra.
Also, both authors were influenced by “the father of modern African writing”, Chinua Achebe, Emecheta was said to have also drawn inspiration from trailblazing Nwapa’s work. Some critics observed that the title of Emecheta’s The Joys of Motherhood directly alludes to Nwapa’s words at the end of her novel Efuru, precisely on page 221, which reads: “Efuru slept soundly that night. She dreamt of the woman of the lake… She gave women beauty and wealth but she had no child. She had never experienced the joy of motherhood. Why then did the women worship her?”
But other than writing, by a stroke of fate, the duo now share a unique “January” connection. Last month, as the literati commemorated the posthumous birthday of Nwapa on January 13, they mourned the exit of Emecheta on January 25.
Though both dates in January, are mutually exclusive, they now represent a dramatic link between the two writers. But what does it spell for the literati? Observers say this development presents the literati an opportunity to celebrate the works, lives and times of both authors.

Their life and times
Born Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa, the late Flora Nwapa as she is widely known has been called the “mother of modern African literature”. And although she says: “There was nothing in me when I was in school that made me feel I was going to be a writer. It was one of those things that just happened.” Her first novel, Efuru, published in 1966, is said to be the forerunner to a generation of African women writers. Nwapa, who died of pneumonia at 62, on October 16, 1993, is recognised as the “first African woman novelist” to be published in English Language in Britain, for which she achieved international recognition.
Efuru was followed by the novels Idu (1967), Never Again (1975), One is Enough (1981) and Women Are Different (1986). Besides authoring several children books, Nwapa published two collections of stories: This Is Lagos (1971) and Wives at War (1980); and the volume of poems Cassava Song and Rice Song (1986). In 1974, she founded “the first press to be run by a woman and targeted at a largely female audience”— Tana Press — and in 1977, the Flora Nwapa Company, publishing her own adult and children’s literature as well as works by other writers.
On her imaginative representation of women, Nwapa laid claim to the culture of empowerment that defined her upbringing. She earned a BA degree from the University College, Ibadan, in 1957. And in 1958, she earned a Diploma in Education from Edinburgh University, Scotland. After returning from Scotland, she got a teaching job at Queens College, Enugu, where she drafted stories “to ward off boredom”.
Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta, who is known widely as “Buchi” Emecheta, died in her sleep at 72. She was a pioneer among women African writers, championing the cause and rights of girls and women at work. Her writing typifies women independence and ability to rise stronger in the face of any setback. Like Nwapa, her writing draws inspiration from her upbringing and life experiences. In fact, her works are autobiographical in nature, chronicling her experiences; but more than that they were healing for her. This, she put succinctly at a conference: “I am just an ordinary writer, an ordinary writer who has to write because if I didn’t write I think I would have to be put in an asylum.”
Born on July 21, 1944 in Lagos to Ibusa in Delta State parents, her father died when she was eight years old. Thus began her struggle for survival. From being passed from one relation to the other, she received full scholarship at the Methodist Girls School, Lagos, where she remained until the age of 16 when, in 1960, she married Sylvester Onwordi, a pupil to whom she had been engaged since she was 11 years old. Her travails in marriage led to her divorcing her abusive husband, who burnt her first manuscript, at 22. She raised her five children alone; and earned a degree, becoming a widely-travelled academic. Emecheta’s trials and triumphs are expressed in her biographical novels.
She authored over 20 books, including In the Ditch (1972), Second-Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979) and many others. She ran the publishing house Ogwugwu Afor, which published her works. Emecheta published her last novel, The New Tribe in 2000, and continued to work as a publisher and writer. In 2010, she suffered a stroke. She received many literary awards and considerable critical acclaim and honours, including an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2005.

On feminism
Both writers do not like to be pigeonholed as feminists but would like to be remembered for their efforts at educating the world on the role of women in Nigeria/Africa, their economic independence, their relationship with their husbands and children, their traditional beliefs and their status in the community as a whole.