Women’s History Month: Flora Nwapa, matriarch of contemporary African literature

In 1966, a young Nigerian woman did what no African woman had done before. She published a novel with an international press company. The book, Efuru, was as much a milestone as it was a disruption.

At a time when African literature was dominated by male voices — Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o — Flora Nwapa insisted on something different. She put an African woman at the centre of the story.

Make no mistake. Nwapa didn’t just write literature. She carved out a space for African women in politics, publishing, storytelling, and history. More than 50 years later, her name is still mentioned with reverence, carrying the same weight as her male contemporaries.

A WOMAN OF MANY FIRSTS

Born Flora Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa on January 13, 1931, in Oguta, present-day Imo state, she was the eldest of six children. Her father, Christopher Nwapa, was an agent for the United Africa Company (UAC), and her mother, Martha Nwapa, was a teacher. Education was non-negotiable in their home, and Flora excelled.

She attended Archdeacon Crowther Memorial Girls’ School before enrolling at the University of Ibadan, where she studied English, history, and geography. After graduating in 1957, she earned a diploma in education from the University of Edinburgh. She worked as a women’s education officer in Calabar, Cross River state, taught at Queen’s School, Enugu, and later became an assistant registrar at the University of Lagos.

During this time, Efuru took shape. The manuscript landed in the hands of Chinua Achebe, then an editor at Heinemann’s African Writers Series. He saw its promise and recommended its publication. That decision made history. Efuru became the first internationally published novel by a black African woman.

WRITING WOMEN BACK INTO THE STORY

Before Nwapa, female characters in African fiction were background figures; wives, daughters, mothers, or seductionists were rarely the protagonists of their own narratives. Efuru changed that.

The novel’s titular character, Efuru, is an independent Igbo woman who defies societal expectations. She leaves an unhappy marriage, takes charge of her own life, and remains strong despite personal losses. Most strikingly, the novel doesn’t force her into the conventional “happy ending” of marriage and children. Instead, she follows a spiritual path, becoming a worshipper of the goddess Uhamiri.

This was radical for the time. Nwapa wasn’t writing about women as victims; she was writing about women who made choices — flawed, unconventional, but theirs to make.

As Marie Umeh, a scholar and expert on African literature, highlighted in “The Poetics of Economic Independence for Female Empowerment”, Nwapa achieved something remarkable with Efuru. She laid the foundation for a new literary movement that defied conventional portrayals of Nigerian women, challenging their reduction to mere roles or rebellious figures.

Nwapa continued to challenge norms with Idu (1970), Never Again (1975), This is Lagos and Other Stories (1971), and Emeka, Driver’s Guard (1972), among others.

REBUILDING AFTER WAR

By the late 1960s, Nigeria was in turmoil. Following the Biafran War, Nwapa fled Lagos. In 1970, after the war, she was appointed minister of health and social welfare in Nigeria’s former east central state — the first person to hold the post.

Her role was critical. She worked to reunite children displaced by the war with their families and oversaw the return of those evacuated to other countries. In 1971, she became minister for land, survey, urban development, and establishment, leading efforts to rebuild war-torn communities.

For her service, she was awarded the national honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger in 1982.

BEYOND WRITING: THE BUSINESS OF REPRESENTATION

Nwapa decided that it wasn’t enough to just tell stories; she changed how they were published. In 1974, she launched Tana Press, becoming the first African woman to own a publishing house.

Through Tana Press, she published her later works, including One is Enough (1981) and Women Are Different (1986). More importantly, she gave other African women a platform, ensuring their voices weren’t silenced.

Despite the government’s talk of supporting indigenous publishing, she received little financial backing, and so her publishing house fell apart. But for Nwapa, it was more about giving Africans control over their narratives than commercial success.

A PROUD LEGACY 

While her male contemporaries won Nobel Prizes and international accolades, Nwapa’s work was sometimes dismissed as “domestic” or “feminine”. But she wasn’t writing for the Western literary elite. She was writing for Africa and Africans.

She once said, “The European conquest of Africa radically altered this state of affairs with devastating consequences for women and, by extension, the society as a whole.”

She remained a force beyond literature, advocating for women’s economic and educational empowerment, especially in rural areas.

Nwapa passed away in 1993, but her legacy is undeniable. Without her, there is no Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, no Buchi Emecheta, no new wave of African women writers reclaiming their narratives.

This Women’s History Month, her story deserves to be told loud, proud, and unforgettable.