Florence Onyebuchi “Buchi” Emecheta OBE, was the author of more than 20 books, including Second Class Citizen (1974), The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977) and The Joys of Motherhood (1979).
Born in Lagos in1944, the young Emecheta attended the all-girls’ missionary school and later received a scholarship to Methodist Girls’ School in Lagos. In 1960, she married and moved to London. At the age of 22, Emecheta left her husband and while working to support her children earned a B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Sociology in 1972 from London University and gained a PhD from the university in 1991.
Emecheta began writing about Black British life in the New Statesman. These stories reflected Emecheta’s quest for equality and dignity.
Following her literary success, she travelled as a visiting professor to Pennsylvania State University, the University of California among others. From 1980 to 1981, she was visiting professor of English at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. She became a Fellow at the University of London in 1986.
Emecheta received many honours during her career, including the 1978 Jock Campbell Prize from the New Statesman and was listed in Granta magazine’s 1983 20 “Best of Young British Novelists”. In 2005, she was granted an OBE for services to literature. Sadly, she suffered a stroke and died in 2017
The Buchi Emecheta Foundation promoting literary and educational projects in the UK and in Africa was launched in 2018 at SOAS. Emecheta features on a list of 100 women recognised in 2018 by BBC History Magazine as having changed the world.
Refs: Nigeria: Remembering Nigerian Literary Icon Buchi Emecheta – allAfrica.com; Buchi Emecheta – Wikipedia
