Flora Nwapa
(born Jan. 13, 1931, Oguta, Nigeria?died Oct. 16, 1993, Enugu) was a Nigerian novelist best known for re-creating
Igbo
(Ibo) life and customs from a woman’s viewpoint.
Nwapa was educated in Ogula,
Port Harcourt
, and
Lagos
before
attending
University College in Ibadan,
Nigeria
(1953?57), and the
University of Edinburgh
. She worked as a teacher and administrator in Nigeria from 1959 until the Biafran civil war erupted in 1967. After the war she was commissioner for health and social welfare in East Central state before she formed Tana Press/Flora Nwapa Company to publish African books.
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Poetry: First Lines
Efuru
(1966), Nwapa’s first
novel
, is based on an old folktale of a woman chosen by the gods.
Idu
(1970) centres on a woman whose life is bound up with that of her husband to such an extent that when he dies she seeks him out in the land of the dead. In
This Is Lagos, and Other Stories
(1971) and the later novels
One Is Enough
(1981) and
Women Are Different
(1986), Nwapa continued her
compassionate
portrayal of women in modern Nigerian society. The novel
Never Again
(1975) and
Wives at War, and Other Stories
(1980) deal with the Biafran conflict. Her sole volume of
poetry
is
Cassava Song and Rice Song
(1986).