Born: January 13, 1931, Oguta, Nigeria
Flora Nwapa, Nigeria's first published female novelist and Africa's first internationally-acclaimed English-language female writer, held the spotlight for nearly her entire adult life.
She was not only an accomplished author, but a publisher, public servant, and activist.
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.
Nwapa joined the Ministry of Education in Calabar as an Education Officer until 1959.
She continued to work in both education and the civil service in several positions, including as Assistant Registrar, University of Lagos (1962–67)
She then took employment as a teacher at Queen's School in Enugu, where she taught English and Geography from 1969 to 1971.
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
From Nwapa's first novel, Efuru, published in 1966, to the establishment of her publishing company, Tana Press, Nwapa demonstrated an unwavering commitment to advancing and highlighting the women of Nigeria.
Additionally, she used her books, and the books she published, to introduce Nigeria’s rich culture to a global audience.
Nwapa served by day in the Nigerian government, becoming the first female Minister of Health and Social Welfare for Nigeria’s former East Central State in 1970.
she worked to reunite children and their parents who were divided as a result of the Biafran War.
she became Minister of Lands, Survey, and Urban Development, a position she held until 1974.
Nwapa, known as 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
The forerunner to a generation of African women writers, she is acknowledged as the first African woman novelist to be published in the English language in Britain and achieve international recognition,with her first novel Efuru being published in 1966 by Heinemann Educational Books.
she is best known for recreating life and traditions from an Igbo woman's viewpoint.
She was one of the first African women publishers when she founded Tana Press in the 1970s.
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, University of Minnesota, University of Michigan, and 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 from pneumonia on 16 October 1993 in hospital in Enugu, Nigeria, at the age of 62
Flora Nwapa is the subject of a documentary entitled The House of Nwapa, made by Onyeka Nwelue,that premiered in August 2016
January 13 2017 Google Celebrate Flora Nwapas 86th Birthday with doodle.
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