Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta , 1944-, Nigerian novelist, b. Lagos as Florence Onye Buchi Emecheta. In 1962 she accompanied her husband to England, where she had five children. After leaving her husband, she remained in England and wrote novels about the struggles of African women moving from traditional to modern roles in societies where men have little respect for them. Her first two novels, drawn from her own experiences, In the Ditch (1972) and Second Class Citizen (1974), were published together as Adah's Story (1983). Other novels are set in Nigeria and are highly critical of the treatment of African women. These include The Bride Price (1976), the ironically titled Joys of Motherhood (1979), The Family (1990), and Kehinde (1994). She also writes children's stories.

Bibliography: See her autobiography Head above Water (1986); studies by M. Umeh, ed. (1994), K. Fishburn (1995), and J. F. Uraizee (1999).

Emecheta, (Florence Onye) Buchi (1944– ), Nigerian novelist, born near Lagos, the daughter of a railway porter. She left her home country at the age of 20 with four small children and moved to London, where she studied sociology at the University of London. Her first novel, In the Ditch (1972), and its sequel, Second-Class Citizen (1974), were based on articles written for the New Statesman. Both were published in one volume as Adah's Story (1983). Succeeding novels, The Bride Price (1976), The Slave Girl (1977), and The Joys of Motherhood (1979), dealt with the position of women in Nigerian society. In 1980 she returned to Nigeria as a visiting professor at Calabar University. Gwendolen (1989) focuses on the subject of child abuse and cultural isolation. She has also written children's books and plays for television. Her autobiography, Head Above Water, was published in 1986. See also post-colonial literature.