Buchi Emecheta, Novelist And Nigerian Literary Icon, Dies At 72

Novelist and renowned writer, Florence Onyebuchi “Buchi” Emecheta has died. 

Media report continues:

She died on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 in London, England where she's lived most of her life.

Confirming her death, 'the current president of Association of Nigerian Authors, ANA, Denja Abdullahi said the death was a big loss to the Nigerian literary world.  Abdullahi said Emecheta would forever be remembered for championing the agenda of the girl child through her works. 

“We have lost a rare gem in this field. Her works would forever live to speak for her. It is a sad loss to our circle and we pray that God would give the family the fortitude to bear the loss. She was known for championing the female gender and we would forever miss her,” he said.  Buchi is currently trending on social media with tributes pouring in from her fans and well-wishers.

In November 2016, The AUTHORITY Newspaper had written:

For dreaming the art of literature and notwithstanding the bracing gender challenges of her socio-cultural envi­ronment, holding firmly to this dream and subsequently impacting Nigeria, Africa and British literature; for being a powerful voice for equity and women inclusion in the wholesome progression of humanity, Florence Onyebu­chi Emecheta, OBE, is The AUTHORITY Icon.

She has published more than 20 books and is arguably the most im­portant female Nigerian and African writer to-date, respected for her imagina­tive and documentary writing about Af­rican women’s experiences in Africa and in Great Britain. She is characterized as “the first successful black woman novelist living in Britain after 1948,” earning her a deserved Order of the British Empire (OBE). She has also served on numerous British committees as a respected voice for arts, integrationist, and women’s is­sues, although she rejects the feminist la­bel. 

She was born on July 21, 1944 in Yaba, Lagos. Her mother was Alice Ogbanje Okwuekwu Emecheta, and her father was Jeremy Nwabudike Emecheta, who worked as a molder in the railways. Buchi dreamed of being a writer from an early age, influenced by an older aunt who told stories to the children after dinner. After her father was killed as a soldier in the British Army, in Burma, Buchi was sent to a Methodist Girls’ High School in Lagos.

In 1960, Emecheta married Sylvester Onwordi, a student to whom she had been engaged since the age of eleven. Af­ter bearing two children in Nigeria, Buchi followed her husband to London, where he was a student. The young family strug­gled with poor living conditions to help finance Onwordi’s education. Emecheta worked as a library officer at the British Museum and bore three more children, and at the same time began writing.

But her husband was not supportive of Buchi’s dreams. She separated from her husband in 1966 when he burned the manuscript to her first book, The Bride Price. According to Emecheta, “I was the typical African woman, I’d done this pri­vately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn’t read it. And later he burnt the book ... and that was the day I said I’m going to leave this marriage … I said ‘I just feel you just burnt my child.”

So at the age of 22, Buchi struck out on her own. She struggled to support her children and continue writing. From 1970 to 1974, she studied and received an hon­ors degree in sociology at the University of London. At the same time, the British left wing magazine The New Statesman published passages subsequently gathered into her later novel In the Ditch (1972).

Emecheta has published 20 novels to date. Her first two published novels are In the Ditch (1972) and Second-Class Citi­zen (1974). Other novels including The Slave Girl (1977), The Joys of Mother­hood (1979) and the allegorical novel The Rape of Shavi (1983). She has written nu­merous plays for the BBC and won sever­al awards, including being selected as one of the Best British Young Writers in 1983.

From 1972 to 1982, Emecheta served as a visiting lecturer and professor at universities in the United States, England and Nigeria. Shortly thereafter, she and her journalist son founded a publishing company in London and Nigeria, named Og­wugwu Afor. She bagged a PhD in social education in 1991.