Flora Nwapa
"I feel that every woman, married or single, must have economic independence." Born on January 13, 1931, in Nigeria, Flora Nwapa is Africa’s first internationally recognized female novelist and publisher, considered the “Mother of African female tradition.” Efuru was her novelistic debut. She says she was influenced by Achebe, Hemingway, Austen, and Dickens. When asked where she was born, Nwapa said “that she comes from a place where women are very strong.” She came from Oguta, a town on the east bank of Oguta Lake in Imo State of southeastern Nigeria. It is made up of 27 villages and is one of the special African communities in that status and recognition are not biologically based (so accomplished women like Efuru can break kola nuts). She put Oguta on the literary map. Female deities figure largely in the culture and literature of the Igbo people. In her first novel, which takes place over the course of 10 years, dialogue and daily conversation are privileged over action. Her book includes little authorial commentary. The novel shows the tension between tradition and modernity. Mother of three, Nwapa treats the topic of motherhood, which is a preoccupation of almost all African fiction, ambivalently. Nwapa creates a world of women in which men are marginal characters and initiated the fight for African women writers.
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Nwapa’s works include:
Idu, 1970 This Is Lagos and Other Stories, 1971 Mammywater, 1979 The Adventures of Deke, 1980 The Miracle Kittens, 1980 Journey to Space, 1980 Wives at War and Other Stories, 1980 Cassava Song and Rice Song, 1986 Emeka, Driver’s Guard, 1987 Never Again, 1992 One Is Enough, 1981 Women are Different, 1986 The Lake Goddess, 1995 |
“Flora Nwapa was the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She opened the door for many African female writers. Nwapa refused to describe the women in her novels in the way most African male literature writers described them. She strayed away from their way of thinking and described the women in her novels as heroines who are independent, strong, and more than what society perceives and describes them as. Nwapa inspired women to break away from the narrative of the traditional Igbo woman that fails to fully acknowledge who Igbo women are. Her way of thinking challenged African societies to think of how impactful women are not only in their homes but in society.”