User:SafariScribe/Buchi Emecheta

Buchi Emecheta OBE
Born	Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta (1944-07-21)July 21, 1944 Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria
Died	25 January 2017(2017-01-25) (aged 72) London, England
Nationality	Nigerian
Education	Methodist Girls' School University of London
Occupation	Writer
Notable work	In the Ditch (1972) Second Class Citizen (1974) The Bride Price (1976) The Slave Girl (1977) The Joys of Motherhood (1979)

Buchi Emecheta OBE (born Florence Onyebuchi Emecheta; 21 July 1944 – 25 January 2017) was a Nigerian writer.

Life

Emecheta was born on July 21, 1944, in Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria, to Igbo parents, Jeremy Nwaudike and Alice Ogbanje Okwuekwu from Ibuza, Delta State. Her father died when she was nine. After the household separated, Emecheta moved to Lagos to live with her mother's cousin. She won a scholarship into Methodist Girls' High School. When her dream of attending the University of Ibadan was thwarted, she married in 1960, to Sylvester Onwordi, whom she has been friend since she was eleven.

Emecheta started working for the American embassy in Lagos. She stayed there for two years before joining her husband, who is a student, to London. At London she started working as a librarian in the British Museum, and had five children, Chiedu Florence, Ikechukwu Sylvester, Chukwuemeka Jake, Obiajulu Christy, and Chiago Alice. She started writing during her free time since she has dreamt of being a writer since childhood. During that time, she completed her first manuscript, which was burned by her husband, and part of the reason for their separation.

Emecheta started writing a column for the New Statesman. Using the Articles submitted for the magazine, she started writing In the Ditch, which was later published in 1972, and Second Class Citizen in 1974. Emecheta began studies in 1970, at London University, where he had her degree in sociology in 1974. She wrote two plays for BBC entitled A Kind of Marriage, and The Ju Ju Landlord. She also turned the manuscript into a book, The Bride Price, published in 1976. It was followed by The Slave Girl, published in 1977, and The Joys of Motherhood in 1979.

In late 1970s and early 1980s, Emecheta was a visiting professor at various universities in the United States, and at the University of Calabar. She returned to England in 1982, as a lecturer, and later as a fellow at London University. Emecheta began to write children and young adults fiction including Titch the Cat in 1979, Nowhere to Play, The Wrestling Match, and The Moonlight Bride in 1980, and Naira Power in 1982. It was followed by The Rape of Shavi in 1983. Before continuing her usual writing, Emecheta wrote and published Head above Water, an autobiography, in 1986. In 2008, Emecheta shared her time between London and Nigeria. She, after suffering stroke, died on January 25, 2017, in London at 72.

References

Bibliography

• Barnes, Paula C. (2017). "Buchi Emecheta". Critical Survey of World Literature. Ipswich, Massachusetts, US: 928–930.