Buchi Emecheta

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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).