Flora Nwapa

Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (13 January 1931 – 16 October 1993) was a Nigerian author best known as Flora Nwapa She was a Nigerian author who has been called the mother of modern African Literature. She was the forerunner to a generation of African women writers, and the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain. She achieved international recognition with her first novel Efuru, published in 1966 by Heinemann Educational Books. While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint.

Quotes

• What can a woman do? You say everyday. In the end, a woman does something, and even then still you look down on women.
• There is no problem in this world that cannot be solved.
  • Efuru 1966
• There was nothing in me when I was in school that made me feel I was going to be a writer. It was one of those things that just happened. I didn’t have the ambition to say, “Oh, Flora, you are going to be a writer, so work towards it
  • [1] Nwapa on how she became Africa best female author.
• We are well, Efuru replied. It is only hunger. It is good that it is only hunger. Good health is what we pray for.
  • [2]

• Efuru told him that she would drown herself in the lake if he did not marry her. Adizua told her he loved her very much and that even the dust she trod on meant something to him.
  • (Chapter 1, Location 65)
• I am sure you will like this gin. Nwabuzo had it buried in the ground last year when there was rumour that policemen were sent to search her house. When the policemen left, finding nothing, Nwabuzo was still afraid and left it in the ground. A week later, she fell ill and was rushed to the hospital where she remained for six months. She came back only a week ago. So the gin is a very good one.
  • (Chapter 1, Location 114)
• They did not see the reason why Adizua should not marry another woman since according to them two men do not live together. To them Efuru was a man, since she could not reproduce.
  • (Chapter 2, Location 385,)