Today’s Google doodle celebrates late Nigerian novelist Flora Nwapa.
Florence Nwanzuruahu Nwapa (best known as Flora Nwapa) was a Nigerian Igbo author.
Acknowledged as the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language, Flora has been called the mother of modern African literature.
Nwapa’s first book, Efuru, was published in 1966, a pioneering work as an English-language novel by an African woman writer.
She is also known for her governmental work in reconstruction after the Biafran War. In particular, she worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced during the war.
She also worked as a publisher of African literature and promoted women in African society.
But in spite of her landmark achievements in African literature as a
frontrunner for female writers and the critical engagements in her
books, she is less regarded compared to her male contemporaries such as
Achebe, Wole Soyinka and John Pepper Clark.
While never considering herself a feminist, she is best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman’s viewpoint.
Nwapa’s career as an educator continued throughout her life and encompassed teaching at colleges and universities both locally and internationally.
She taught at such institutions as the New York University, Trinity College, University of Minnesota, University of Michigan and the University of Ilorin.
Flora Nwapa died on 16 October 1993 in a hospital in Enugu State, Nigeria from pneumonia.
She was 62.
May her dear soul Continue to rest in peace