Flora Nwapa

Author

• Born: January 18, 1931
• Birthplace: Oguta, East Central State, Nigeria
• Died: October 16, 1993
• Place of death: Enugu, Nigeria

Biography

Flora Nwapa was born in Oguta, Nigeria, in 1931, when Nigeria was still a British colony. Both her parents were schoolteachers. She received her higher education at University College, Ibadan, graduating with a B.A. in 1957. This was followed by a year’s postgraduate study in education at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. On returning to Nigeria she was appointed education officer in the Ministry of Education and stationed at Calabar. She then obtained a teaching post at Queen’s School, Enugu, where she worked from 1959 through 1961. She later became an administrative officer and assistant registrar at the University of Lagos. In 1967 she married Gogo Nwakuche, an industrialist, by whom she had three children.

At the outbreak of the civil war following Nigeria’s independence, Nwapa, a member of the Igbo tribe, moved to the breakaway province of Biafra. At the end of the devastating conflict, she became a member of the executive council of the newly created East Central State of Nigeria, serving in that post from 1970 through 1971. She later assumed various government posts, such as Minister of Health and Social Welfare, and worked within the Commission for Lands and Urban Development, where one of her jobs was to find homes for two thousand war orphans.

In 1974, Nwapa founded a publishing company, Tana Press Ltd., which thenceforth published her adult fiction; three years later, she etablished Flora Nwapa Books, which handled her children’s books. She also continued to teach and was a visiting lecturer and professor in Nigeria and the United States. She died on October, 16, 1993, at the age of sixty-two.

It is claimed that Flora Nwapa was the first black African woman to write in English. Certainly she was a pioneer. Her books can be divided between adult and children’s fiction, with her first novel, Efuru, appearing in 1966. Efuru is typical of her later adult novels. The protagonist is an African woman transforming her traditional place in a patriarchal society into a new role that will fit the emerging nation of Nigeria. To attain her goal, she uses an old folktale of a woman chosen by the gods, especially the lake goddess Uhamiri. Nwapa captures the Biafran war experience in Wives at War, and Other Stories (1980), a collection of shorter fiction, and in the novel Never Again (1975). These works also emphasize female roles, from patriotism to survival, from planning to taking responsibility. Women Are Different (1986) traces the parallel lives of three women who all become financially independent without their husband’s help. Despite the feminist nature of her books, Nwapa is not exactly a feminist and claimed to respect men. However, she wants women to move out of the subservient roles traditionally allotted to them. She celebrates the new urban centers because they provide energy and freedom for women to take initiative, and her women’s dialogue is very authentic.

Nwapa often uses African folktale as a bonding motif. Some of her children’s books seek to preserve such tales for a new generation. For example, Mammywater (1979) relates the myths and spiritual beliefs of the Ibos. Other children’s books are instructional or seek to inculcate moral values, such as Emeka, Driver’s Guard (1972) or The Adventures of Deke (1982). Her final novel, completed just before her death, is The Lake Goddess (1995), which again focuses on the lake goddess, here called Mammy Water, who in folklore lives at the bottom of Oguta Lake, near Nwapa’s birthplace. The inspiration of this mythical figure for Nwapa is clear.

Nwapa received an award for literary achievement from the University of Ife, Nigeria, in 1985. In 1992, she was awarded the Order of Niger by the Nigerian government. Her home town awarded her its highest chieftancy title, Ogbuefi, a title almost exclusively reserved for men.