Prominent Nigerians

Full Name: Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa(Flora Nwapa)
State of Origin: Oguta Lake in Imo State
Ethnicity: Igbo.
Date of Birth: January 13, 1931  
Died: 16 October 1993 (aged 62) Enugu 
Nationality: Nigerian
Marriage status: Married.
Spouse(s): Chief Gogo Nwakuche
Parents: Mr Christopher Ijeoma and  Mrs Martha Nwapa
Residence: Enugu, Nigeria
Language: Igbo and English
Religion: Christian
Alma mater: University College, Ibadan, Edinburgh University.
Occupation: Educator, Author, Writer,Publisher, Motivational speaker
Position(S): A Nigerian author best known as Flora Nwapa.

INTRODUCTION
Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa (Flora Nwapa) was born 13 January 1931 in Oguta, in south-eastern Nigeria, by Christopher Ijeoma (an agent with the United Africa Company) and Martha Nwapa, a teacher of drama. She was the eldest of the six children in the family. Flora Nwapa attended school in Oguta, Port Harcourt and Lagos. She went on to earn a BA degree from University College, Ibadan, in 1957. She then went to Scotland where she earned a Diploma in Education from Edinburgh University in 1958.
Florence Nwanzuruahu Nkiru Nwapa was a Nigerian author best known as Flora Nwapa.
She is a Nigerian writer, teacher, and administrator, a forerunner of a whole generation of African women writers. Flora Nwapa is best-known for re-creating Igbo (Ibo) life and traditions from a woman's viewpoint. With her novel Efuru (1966) Nwapa became black Africa's first internationally published female novelist in the English language. She has been called the mother of modern African literature.
As a novelist Nwapa made her debut with Efuru, based on an old folktale of a woman chosen by gods, but challenged the traditional portrayal of women. Efuru, which Nwapa started to write in 1962, was the first novel published by a Nigerian woman in English. The Promised Land by the Kenyan Grace Ogot appeared also in 1966; both works were pathbreakers. Nwapa sent to manuscript to her good friend Chinua Achebe in Lagos and after some editorial suggestions, Achebe sent it to Heineman Educational Books for publication in the African Writers Series (No. 56). The story was set in a rural community. Efuru, the heroine, is a strong and beautiful woman. She loses her child and has two unhappy marriages, but struggless against all obstacles to become a successful businesswoman. At the end she goes to the lake goddess, Uhamiri, who is like a mirror of herself, but she can also be regarded as Nwapa's own alter ego, her mother and daughter. Uhamiri gives her worshipers wealth and beauty but few children. Locally the river goddess was known as Ogbuide. At a conferense, "Queens, Queen Mothers, Priestesses and Power" Nwapa revealed that she has thought of writing a sequel to Efuru, to be titled Efuru in Her Glory.
Nwapa’s second novel, Idu (1970), was also a story about a woman, whose life is bound up with that of her husband. When he dies, she choices to seek him out in the land of dead rather than live without him or prefer motherhood to anything else. The critical reception was mainly hostile. Eustace Palmer in African Literature Today and Eldred Jones in The Journal of Commonwealth Literature compared it with Elechi Amadi’s The Concubine (1966), also published in the African Writers series (No. 25), but not in Nwapa’s favour. The war novel, Never Again (1975), drew its material from the Nigerian Civil War (see also Chinua Achebe’s Beware, Soul Brother, 1971, a collection of poems, and Elechi Amadi’s Sunset in Biafra, 1979). The protagonist, Kate, who starts as a supporter of the Biafran cause, ends struggling simply to survive. Wives at War, and Other Stories (1980) dealt with the Biafran conflict.

EDUCATION
Nwapa started her primary and secondary education in Ogula, Elelenwa Port Harcourt, and Lagos before attending University College in Ibadan, Nigeria (1953–57) where she studied English, History and Geography, and the University of Edinburgh in 1958 where she obtained a Diploma in Education. Following her return from Scotland, she became an education officer in Calabar in 1958 and then proceeded to teach at Queen's School, Enugu in 1959. From 1962 to 1967 she held the position of assistant registrar at the University of Lagos. She worked as a teacher and administrator in Nigeria from 1959 until the Biafran civil war erupted in 1967, she left Lagos with her family. Like many members of the Igbo elite, they were forced to return to the eastern region after the end of the conflict.
Nwapa served as Minister for Health and Social Welfare for the East Central State (1970-1971). Her tasks included finding homes for 2000 war orphans. Later on she worked for Commissioner for Lands, Survey, and Urban Development (1971-1974).
In 1982 the Nigerian government bestowed on her one of the countries highest honors, the OON (Order of Niger). By her own town, Oguta, she was awarded the highest chieftaincy title, Ogbuefi, which is usually reserved for men of achievement.  After the war she was commissioner for health and social welfare in East Central state before she formed Tana Press/Flora Nwapa Company to publish African books.

 CAREER
Flora worked as a publisher of African literature and promoted women in African society.
She was one of the first African women publishers, besides writing books, Nwapa established Tana Press, which published adult fiction. It was the first indigenous publishing house owned by a black African woman in West Africa. Between 1979 and 1981 she produced eight volumes of adult fiction. Nwapa set up also another publishing company, Flora Nwapa and Co., which specialized in children’s fiction. In these books she combined Nigerian elements with general moral and ethical teachings. As a business woman, she also encouraged with her own example to break the traditional female roles of wife/mother and strive for equality in society. However, Nwapa did not call herself a feminist but a “womanist,” a term coined by the American writer Alice Walker in her collection of essays, In Search of My Mother’s Garden: Womanist Prose (1983). As well as being a distinguished member of PEN International and the Commonwealth Writer’s Awards committee, she was also the President of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). In 1989, she was made a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Maiduguri and remained so till her death.
She was able to complete her final novel "The Lake Goddess" before she died entrusting the manuscript to the Jamaican Chester Mills. This work centred on the lake goddess Mammy Water, the eternal spring and mythical inspirer of Nwapa’s fiction. Legends tell that the fairy godmother has her adobe on the bottom of Oguta Lake, near the author’s birthplace.

LOVE, MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN
Nwapa was married to Chief Gogo Nwakuche, a business man; they had three children. She remained Nwakuche’s first wife, although he took other wives. Because she wanted her children to have a father, she did not leave or divorce him.
On her successful marriage and motherhood
God helped her to endure all the trials she faced in her husband’s house. She wanted her children to have a father; she did not leave or divorce him.
Flora Nwapa died from pneumonia on 16 October 1993 in hospital in Enugu, Nigeria, at the age of 62.

THE DAYS OF YOUTH:
Flora Oputa was born in Oguta, in south-eastern Nigeria, 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, Port Harcourt and Lagos. She went on to earn a BA degree from University College, Ibadan, in 1957. She then went to Scotland where she earned a Diploma in Education from Edinburgh University in 1958.

INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT FLORA NWAPA
The first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain and achieve international recognition.
She is best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint.
AWARDS, HONOURS, LAURELS AND RECOGNITIONS
Novels

• Efuru (1966)
• Idu (Heinemann African Writers Series, No.56, ISBN 0-435-90056-0; 1970)
• Never Again (1975)
• One is Enough (1981)
• Women are Different (1986)

Short Stories and Poems

• This is Lagos and Other Stories (1971)
• Cassava Song and Rice Song (1986)
• Wives at War and Other Stories (1980)
• Children’s books
• Emeka, Driver’s Guard (1972)
• Mammywater (1979)
• Journey to Space (1980)
• The Miracle Kittens (1980)
• The Adventures of Deke (1980)