Flora Nwapa

While never considering herself a feminist, she was best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint. She was herself a chief of the tribe, holding the otherwise exclusively male title Ogbuefi amongst them. She published African literature and promoted women in African society. She was one of the first African women publishers when she founded Tana Press in Nigeria in 1970. Nwapa engaged in governmental work in reconstruction after the Biafran War; in particular, she worked with orphans and refugees who were displaced during the war.

Flora Nwapa studied at University of Edinburgh and University of Ibadan. The recorded working language is English, Nigerian Pidgin and Igbo. The field of work recorded is writer, novelist and children's writer. Employment is recorded with University of Minnesota, University of Michigan and New York University. Works named in the authority record are Efuru, One is Enough, Wives at War and This is Lagos, and other stories.

• Name — Flora Nwapa • Honorific Prefix — Chief • Birth Name — Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa • Born — 13 January 1931 • Birthplace — Oguta, Nigeria • Died — 16 October 1993 • Place of death — Enugu, Nigeria • Occupation — Author and publisher • Education — University College, Ibadan; Edinburgh University • Genres — Novels; short stories; poems; plays • Notable Works — Efuru (1966) Idu (1970) This Is Lagos and Other Stories (1971) • Spouse — Chief Gogo Nwakuche • Children — 3

Nwapa was born in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State, in south-eastern part of Nigeria, the eldest of the six children of Christopher Ijeoma (an agent with the United Africa Company) and Martha Nwapa, a teacher of drama. Flora Nwapa attended school in Oguta, Secondary School at Elelenwo in Obio Akpor LGA of Rivers State, south-south Nigeria and CMS Girls School, Lagos State, which later moved to Ibadan to merge with Kudeti Girls School and was renamed St Anne's School Ibadan. In 1953, when she was 22 years old, she attended university and in 1957, at the age of 26, earned a B.A. degree from University College, Ibadan in Oyo State, southwest Nigeria. She then went to Scotland, where she earned a Diploma in Education from Edinburgh University in 1958.

Flora Nwapa had three children: Ejine Nzeribe (from her previous relationship), Uzoma Gogo Nwakuche and Amede Nzeribe. She was married to Chief Gogo Nwakuche. Her uncle, A. C. Nwapa, was Nigeria's first Minister of Commerce and Industries, according to The House of Nwapa, the documentary by Onyeka Nwelue. Nwapa is a cousin of Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.

Nwapa's first book, Efuru, was published in 1966 when she was 30 years old, and is considered a pioneering work as an English-Language novel by an African woman writer. She sent the transcript to the famous Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in 1962, who replied with a very positive letter and even included money for the postage to mail the manuscript to the English publisher, Heinemann. Nwapa followed Efuru with the novels such as Idu (1970), Never Again (1975), One is Enough (1981), and Women are Different (1986). She published two collections of storiesThis is Lagos (1971) and Wives at War (1980) and the volume of poems, Cassava Song and Rice Song (1986). She is also the author of several books for children. In the year 1974, she founded Tana Press, and in 1977 the Flora Nwapa Company, publishing her own adult and children's literature as well as works by other writers. She gave as one of her objectives: "to inform and educate women all over the world, especially Feminists (both with capital F and small f) about the role of women in Nigeria, their economic independence, their relationship with their husbands and children, their traditional beliefs and their status in the community as a whole". Tana has been described as "the first press run by a woman and targeted at a large female audience. A project far beyond its time at a period when no one saw African women as constituting a community of readers or a book-buying demographic." At the beginning of Nwapa's literary career, as a result of the way feminism was viewed and the way it was portrayed, she had no interest in feminism because she felt it was prejudiced against men, but she eventually came to terms with it. However, her struggle with feminism is representative of the present conversations about the movement in Africa and the world at large. Her work appeared in publications ranging from the magazines Présence Africaine and Black Orpheus, in the 1960s and '70s, to the 1992 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

Nwapa's career as an educator continued throughout her life and encompassed teaching at colleges and universities internationally, including at New York University, Trinity College, the University of Minnesota, the University of Michigan and the University of Ilorin. She said in an interview with Contemporary Authors: "I have been writing for nearly thirty years. My interest has been on both the rural and the urban woman in her quest for survival in a fast-changing world dominated by men." Flora Nwapa died of pneumonia on 16 October 1993 at a hospital in Enugu, Nigeria, at the age of 62. Her final novel, The Lake Goddess, was posthumously published.